


Rising Up Through the Ashes

by Pandoras_loss



Series: Changing Fate series [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-10 16:49:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 52
Words: 206,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8924710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandoras_loss/pseuds/Pandoras_loss
Summary: Fourth in the Changing Fate Series.  This is an alternate universe of Supernatural Season 6.The civil war in Heaven is looming.  Raphael still has one more trick up his sleeve.  What's left of the planet won't sustain a real Apocalypse, and Crowley is planning to swoop in at the last second to reap the spoils of war.  How are Dean and Beth going to stop it when they have so many other things already on their plate?  Sam has a long road to redemption, but is he really ready to travel it?  How can he possibly redeem himself after all that he has done, and will those who help him along the way find themselves in the firing line right alongside him?  Does Castiel really have the right idea on how changing Fate works, or will all of his plans make things worse?





	1. The Road to Recovery

**Author's Note:**

> It is strongly advised that people read This Is Your Choice (Part 1), Regrets Lead Nowhere Good (Part 2), and Finding Survivors (Part 3) first.
> 
> I do not own the rights or credit for creating Supernatural or the characters from the show, including: Sam and Dean Winchester, Castiel, Bobby Singer, Chuck, Adam Milligan, Rufus Turner, Michael, Jody Mills, Ben Braeden, or Pamela Barnes, to name a few.
> 
> Original characters created by me: Rachel McCoy, Elsbeth (Beth) Foley, Stephen Riley, Ivan and Yuri, and many of the survivors.
> 
> Chapters are written in the the first person when the point of view comes from Beth, and alternating chapters are written in the third person when the point of view comes from another character that is the focus. Typically, the focus of the third person chapters is mentioned in the first or second sentence.
> 
> There is bad language and graphic violence in this. There is also sex.

I made my way back upstairs after target practice, and Gabriel was up there waiting for me. “Mind if I step out for awhile? It’s just . . . I might smite him if he keeps screaming that way . . . maybe I should get rid of his vocal cords.” 

That’s why I’d been downstairs. It was quiet down there, and I’d needed to get away for a while too, because my nerves were fried. I could get away from it easier than Gabriel could, because I’m pretty sure he could hear Sam anywhere in the building, and he hadn’t left this place once in the two weeks since we got here. “Yeah, sure . . . I get it. Do what you’ve gotta do, Grandpa.” 

Gabriel pointed a finger at me, like he was going to tell me to watch it, but ended up telling me to make sure I got some sleep. I’d miss the company, but I should be able to handle things here on my own without him for a few days. He’d bound Sam as securely as angelically possible, so Sam wasn’t going anywhere, and he’d stocked up on everything I could possibly want to eat for a woman entering her second trimester. He’d also gone all out on getting me new clothes that fit my style. I’d just started to show a little, so it’s not like he had to do it, because I didn’t need bigger sizes yet. He just said he wasn’t going back to the camp to get my clothes, and I couldn’t wander around with the same clothes I wore when we were in Vegas for however long we were there . . . He’d probably do the same thing when I did need bigger sizes though, because he still spoiled me. 

After Gabriel was gone, I walked down the hall to Sam’s room and took a deep breath to prepare myself before I went in . . . He was still writhing in pain and in between screams he somehow managed to get enough breath in his lungs to beg out the occasional ‘please,’ or ‘help me.’ It wasn’t easy to witness, but I didn’t want him in there on his own for too long, even if I wasn’t entirely sure whether or not he knew I was there, and if he did know I was there, I didn’t know whether or not he knew it was me. 

Time to check his wounds. They were healing . . . slowly, but they were healing. The first couple of days he kept tearing them open, but that was before Gabriel tied him down using his angel mojo. When Sam was done with detox, he wouldn’t have full range of motion in his right shoulder, but he’d be able to walk again if he had crutches. If he’d taught himself how to use his left hand to slit people’s throats after Dean screwed up his right wrist when he shot him, then Sam could learn how to use a pair of crutches or a cane when his left hand healed a little more from where I’d stabbed it with my angel blade. 

Bandages changed, I sat down in my comfortable chair and wrapped myself in a quilt before pulling out a book, so I had something to do other than stare at him and something to concentrate on other than the screams. I was on my 10th chapter when the screaming stopped, and I looked up to see Sam’s lifeless eyes looking up . . . Fuck. This had already happened a few times, but Gabriel had been here to help then. 

I ran over to the bed and began chest compressions that I kept going until I found a pulse. When I had it back, he blinked up at me. “You aren’t getting off that easy either way, Sam Winchester. It’s either die and have Crowley do whatever he wants to you or fight the demon blood and try to be the man you used to be.” His response? Screaming in my face apparently. Thankfully, that was the last time his heart stopped. I stayed with him until 3 or 4 in the morning to make sure it didn’t happen again. 

When he started shouting and talking to things that weren’t there, I knew the hallucinations had started and decided that he’d be okay long enough for me to go make some food . . . maybe for both of us . . . I could trick him into eating if he thought I was a hallucination . . . he needed to eat, so he could to keep up his strength. He’d already lost a lot of weight and muscle mass even with Gabriel helping me find ways of keeping him hydrated and nourished. 

After I’d eaten, I went back in with a tray and said, “Here we go, Sam . . . soup through a straw.” 

His attention snapped from something on the other side of the room to me. “Rachel . . . you’ve gotta get me out of here. I can’t –“ 

I sat on the side of the bed and stopped him right there on that one. “Sorry, Sam . . . I’m the other one.” 

He shook his head. “No . . . don’t you mess with me . . . you said you wouldn’t do that anymore . . . you’re you . . . you’re not hideous.” 

_Uhhh, thanks? Not sure how you can say that when from what I saw in the Luxor, Rachel is pretty much all monster now . . . Maybe I look the way you wish she did? Unless demon blood made her look normal to you . . . Or maybe your mind is still fucked, and you have no idea what’s really going on right now._

“No, I’m Beth. I don’t –“ 

“Stop it, Rachel! I need your help . . . You have to keep her away from me . . . she’ll kill me!” 

_Nah, if I were going to do that, I would’ve done it by now. I want you to live, so you can suffer, Sam._ I put the straw to his lips, and he made a face at the tomato soup that came up through the straw, but he drank some more before I decided to try again. “Sam, I’m Beth. I’m not Rachel. I’m not messing with you . . . uh, ask me something Rachel would know, and I bet I won’t know it . . . or ask me something only Beth would know, and I bet I do know that.” I’d lost his interest to whoever he was looking at over my shoulder. We’d have to revisit that one later.

I was napping in my chair a few hours later when Sam shouted and woke me up. “No, get away from me you bitch! I’m gonna kill you.“ _Here we go again. Maybe I can use this to my advantage._ I stood up next to where he was looking, so he could see the contrasts between us and said, “Sam . . . Whoever you see to my left is Rachel . . . I am Beth. I’m human.” 

Whatever she said to him, he looked at me and said, “Rachel?” 

_Oh, for fuck’s sake._ “No, Sam. I’m Beth. Why would the monster version of me admit that she is Beth? Why wouldn’t one of us want to admit to being Rachel? It’s because Rachel is the monster. I am Beth.” 

I lost his focus again, because he looked over my right shoulder and said, “Dean! No . . . no . . . that’s not what I . . . “ and I went back to my chair to let him talk to his mind’s version of Dean. From the sounds of it . . . his mind’s version of Dean was pretty accurate to the way Dean really felt about things but never said out loud. I needed a break, so I left Sam to his new chat with what sounded, like his Dad, while I went for an early morning walk around the premises. I think I preferred it when he was screaming.

Later, when I went back, he was shouting at Meg. I knew it wasn’t her anymore than Rachel had been Rachel, because they couldn’t get in here, but it was still unsettling to see him like that. Days and and days of it later, I thought I was going out of my mind too. I wondered what constituted a few days to an archangel because Gabriel still hadn’t come back. He was going to be annoyed with me for not taking better care of myself. I was eating okay, but sleep was another story. I grabbed a couple of hours here and there when I could, but it wasn’t really enough. 

A week after Gabriel left, I fell asleep for about half an hour in the afternoon and was woken up by a groggy voice. “There are consequences for negative actions . . . even if they don’t happen right away . . . I wonder what yours will be after what you did.” 

I uncurled myself from the chair and looked over to see a bedraggled, haggard, and beardy Sam looking at me from the bed. “From the looks of things . . . I’d say they’ll be putting up with a bitchy, passive aggressive Sam after 3 weeks of listening to him scream and call me Rachel,” I answered crankily. _Should probably go get him some food._

Sam looked away from me when I came back in with his lunch, so I put it on the nightstand next to him and said, “Let me know when you want to eat,” before I took my place back in that blasted chair and tucked in to my Nutella and banana lightly toasted sandwich, which was my new food of choice when I wasn’t snacking on fruit. 

“Like I’d ask you for help on anything . . . probably poisoned it,” he said a couple of minutes later while still looking away from me. _Is he sulking like a petulant child? Ass._

“You know what? You’re right. I haven’t had much to do lately, so I thought I’d waste my time keeping you alive just so I could poison you when your dickhead, non-doped up self came back.” He ignored that, and I finished off my Nutella sandwich before I added matter-of-factly, “You’re going to need my help to do just about everything. I don’t think that you’re going to be able to move around all that well anymore.” 

He looked at me sharply then and said hoarsely, “Yeah, thanks for that. You know . . . I don’t remember you being this . . . mean!”

“So, I’m being mean to the man that killed the planet? Maybe I don’t feel the need to play nice with you anymore, Sam.” _If he’s not going to eat that, I wonder if he’d care if I took it._

He was quiet for a couple of minutes and finally muttered, “You’re the one who killed the planet, not me.” 

_How mature._ “And that is why you’re going to stay hobbled until you can accept responsibility for everything you did . . . You think because I didn’t let you become God that I killed the planet? No, you killed the planet on your way to the top. Now you have to live in the mess that you made just like the rest of us.” _What about an orange? Yeah, I could really go for one of those right now._

I got up to go get an orange for each of us. He’d been watching the door while I was gone and quickly looked away again to keep up the charade of ignoring me when I came back. I tossed his orange to him and said sarcastically, “Catch . . . oh sorry. You can’t,” as it bounced off his head and rolled onto his pillow. It earned me a bitch face, so I said, “What? Is what you had planned for me better than tossing an orange at my head . . . gently, I might add?” before I sat down and started to peel my own orange. 

“Why won’t you just leave? Where’s Dean or Bobby? Anyone else but you.” 

I waited until I nearly finished my orange and said, “They don’t know where you are, and I’m the only one here . . . Since most of your problems with me seem to stem from you thinking I’ve stolen Dean away from you, I thought it’d be better if he weren’t here at first . . . and to be honest . . . after the way you literally crucified him on that wall . . . I’m making sure you keep your distance until I know you won’t do that again,” before I walked out and left him to dwell on that for awhile.

I went back in about half an hour later and decided it was now or never. I couldn’t leave him tied up forever, so I said the Enochian phrase Gabriel had taught me to make the ropes normal ropes again, cut the ones around his feet, and moved up to do the ones on his wrists, but I made sure to keep my distance. I didn’t want him to take the knife from me and try to stab me with it or to get punched in the face, but he let me do it without any hassle. He seemed to have lost his snarkiness too. 

“You need any help with anything?” He looked away again and shook his head. “There are some clean clothes in your size that Gabriel picked up before he left. I’ll leave them at the foot of the bed for you . . . the food is still there if you’re hungry later. Here are a few books that have nothing whatsoever to do with the occult or hunting. Ummm . . . there’s a bathroom down the hall. Call me if you need to use it. I’ll help you get there. You can figure out how to do the rest yourself. I’ll check in on you later.” Bad move. Shouldn’t have left him. 

I came back 3 or 4 hours later after a nap, and he wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere. I ran through the halls shouting his name and got nothing, so I went to the front door. _Fuck!_ I pulled out my handgun and left the door open behind me, because Gabriel had the only key, and I didn’t have any other way to get in the bunker without it. Fortunately, Sam hadn’t gotten very far, but unfortunately, he hadn’t taken into account that he had no freaking clue where we were. 

We were in the middle of Croat country down here, and there he was leaning up against a tree to support his weight while he weakly swung a stick at 3 Croats to try and keep them away from him. _You foolish, foolish man._ I took aim and shot all 3 of them in the head. Sam glanced at me after their bodies fell and decided he didn’t want to come back just because I’d helped him out, so he started to limp off in the other direction and fell in the ditch. _Oh, that had to hurt._ I remembered what it was like being shot so I knew a fall like that probably opened his wounds up some and would make healing them take longer now. 

When I got to him, he was groaning in pain and slapped the ground with his left hand in frustration before struggling to roll over and look up at me when I had to take out a couple more Croats about 10 seconds later. _What the fuck am I going to do? I can’t get him up by myself if I’m not supposed to be picking up logs . . . He can’t get up on his own, and there are Croats everywhere . . . Leave him here._

I turned to run back into the bunker, and he shouted, “You’re just going to leave me here? I knew you were trying to kill me.” _No, because I’m not you._

Stopping to look over my shoulder at him, I briefly explained, so he knew I was coming back. “I need some rope, so I can try and get you back up . . . I’m not leaving you with my gun. I need it to protect myself, because some of us aren’t immune, and you’d probably use it to shoot me.” Then I jogged back, got what I needed, came back 2 minutes later, and had to kill 4 more Croats between the bunker and Sam. _The news is out that there are humans here. Thanks for that, Sam._

When I got to Sam, I bent down, so I could wrap the rope under his arms and around his chest before I tied it in a secure knot at the front. Making sure the knot would hold, I looked around for more Croats and didn’t see any, so I grabbed a longer rope, threaded it under the rope around him, and slung both ends of the longer rope over the tree branch above us. _Hope that branch holds._

I pulled down on the bits of rope hanging from the other side of the branch, and the top half of Sam’s body started to lift off the ground. He shouted in pain at the pressure being put on his right shoulder, but I kept going until he was on his feet again. We were running out of time. It’d gone quiet . . . too quiet. I didn’t see anything, but I knew something was coming. “We need to move . . . now.” _Put the bitch face away. Now is so not the time, Sam._

“Why would I do anything you –“ He cut himself off when he saw about 200 Croats moving towards us at an alarming speed over the top of a hill and decided it might be best to do what I said this time. 

He needed a crutch, and I guess I was that crutch, so we had to work together to get him back to the bunker as fast as we could. Wasn’t fast enough. The first wave of Croats hit us about half way there. I stopped just long enough to take out the Croats at the forefront of the onslaught before getting Sam going again. I always kept a spare silver magazine with me after Penn State, the same way I always kept my angel blade on me after Sam sold me to Crowley, so I switched to that when I emptied my other magazine, and when that one was empty, I had to switch to my angel blade. 

I had to fight. I was sort of fighting for Sam, but by that point, I was mostly fighting to make sure I didn’t get turned into a Croat. If that happened, my baby would turn into a Croat, and Dean might get sent to Hell with me if our souls were linked in life and death. I think I understood a little bit better why he’d tried to keep us from being connected for so long if he really believed he was going to go to Hell, because I didn’t want that for him when it was a very real possibility if I didn’t get Sam and I out of this.


	2. Tired of Waiting

Dean rolled over in the middle of another mostly sleepless night and two eyes peered back at him from the other pillow. He squinted. “You tell anyone, and I’ll ship you off to one of the farms . . . I thought we talked about this. You sleep on the foot of the bed or the floor, not on Beth’s pillow.” Jules placed one of his paws over his nose and didn’t even pretend like he was going to get up. “Nah, those kind of puppy dog eyes don’t work on me . . . move it.” Dean rolled to sit up on his side of the bed as the dog slunk down to the foot of the bed and hopped down onto the floor. 

The dog had followed Dean everywhere ever since he got back from Vegas, so 10 minutes later Dean didn’t even have to think about leaving the front door of the cabin open the few extra seconds it took to let it follow behind him as they stepped out into what was left of the night. There’d been a few times at the start when he’d left the dog behind in a couple of cabins or the mess hall and once an outpost, and it would scratch the door and bark until someone let it out. Couldn’t afford to let it make that kind of noise now. Nobody else was awake other than the guards on the wall and maybe Ezra, who was probably camped out on the roof, like he was every night around this time. 

That kid still wouldn’t say anything to anyone during the day, but he talked a lot when he was looking up at his star . . . Dean’d had a few good conversations with him . . . Beth was right. Ezra was a smart kid, and he almost always knew the right things to say without knowing he was doing it, but Dean had other things to do now, so he just called up a quiet good morning to the kid while he continued on his way.

This place was starting to get a little crowded with 2,000 new kids, but there was still plenty of room for anymore they found. They’d hit the number of adults they needed to keep things running in the main camp a while ago, so unless they were teachers in a previous life, most of the 3,000 adults they’d found in Vegas after the mass exorcism, had been split up between the outposts. 3,000 out of around 100,000 wasn’t great, but most of the demons had been sporting binding sigils, or they’d killed their meat suits at some point, and 3,000 was better than what they’d had before Vegas. The outposts had all been short on people, because most of the humans that’d been found in the last year were kids, and now the outposts could start getting some of those big projects they’d been planning off the ground. 

Bringing over 5,000 people back hadn’t been easy, but a couple of the Air Wolves stole a cargo carrier and flew a few round trips to bring all the kids to an Air Force base in Wisconsin. Cas sent Stephen and Pamela, Deacon and Sue, and Gwen and the Minister, along with their snow ploughs to meet them at the runway, and then they drove the kids get back to the camp. The adult captives from Vegas all came back in the back of military trucks the werewolves drove off of the Air Force base. It’d been rough for a week or two at the main camp until some of Tom’s soldiers came and helped Rob and Carl’s small team of carpenters put up cabins faster. Normally, they would’ve had carpenters from the outposts help, but they were all busy building cabins of their own. Everybody had a bed to sleep in and plenty of space in their cabins now. 

The werewolves had taken over the outpost Dean and Beth had half built. It was the right size for the 50 werewolves they’d been able to bring back with them . . . Tom was in charge of that outpost. His men were still soldiers and followed orders, but there were werewolf civilians mixed in with them that couldn’t get the idea that now that they were out of Vegas, it meant they could take those collars off and do whatever the hell they wanted. The rest of the werewolves, like the rest of the humans in Vegas, had been taken as meat suits when the demons fled the city after Sam’s defeat. The werewolf outpost was going to specialize in obtaining weapons from run down bases and making ammunition for anything the other camps needed. 

There were a few werewolves with kids in the main camp, and they came for un-timed and unsupervised visits after school. A couple with the right background helped out with the afterschool hunter training. They were a big help with this many kids being trained everyday. After Adam showed them how he did things, James took the kids that were his daughter’s age and a year younger, and Rick helped out with kids that were Adrien’s age down to about 8. Carrie and Steph usually worked with the kids that were between those two age groups. Devon worked with the kids that were 11 to 13, and the other hunters worked with the teenagers. 

The werewolf parents usually ate here with their kids. Then they might play games with them for a couple of hours or help them with their homework and went back to their own camp when it was time for lights out. They didn’t want their kids living in the werewolf camp in case something went wrong there, and they couldn’t live in the main camp for the same reason. If one of those collars came off, people, especially kids would die. It was a hard call, but it’s just the way it had to be for now until they could find a cure or the parents trusted themselves around their kids enough to chance having them live with them. 

They were still getting translations from the werewolf tablet off of Kevin. Kevin was smart and seemed like he’d seen some serious shit when he was with Sam, because he wasn’t the same terrified kid he was the last time Dean saw him. Kevin had led Sam in a lot of wrong directions and stalled on being able to translate or skipped over stuff in the tablet that would’ve made things worse, so he didn’t really know whether there was a cure or not and was working on it with Chuck as his mentor . . . they had different abilities, but both had to go through the same headaches and crap like that, so Chuck was the only other person that got what that was like. 

The farms were working together to build a massive greenhouse. They were hoping they’d be able to get a small field to grow in it. If it worked, they’d build more, because there was still snow everywhere, and they hadn’t had a chance to plant at all this year. Things here were running okay. 

The wall was done, and they’d been having unplanned drills every couple of days . . . the werewolves helped with that one, because they moved faster and could jump higher than normal humans, so they were always on the team trying to get into the different camps. The camp needed more people to go out looking for supplies to sustain the bigger population, but they were making it work, and they were still finding the occasional survivor that way. Dean was still getting intel from the Dead Hunters Society, but they’d gone a lot quieter on finding people in the last couple of weeks, so they’d switched their focus to keeping an eye on Crowley and Eve. 

Everything here at the camp was fine . . . and now he had to get the hell out of here. Not on a supply run. Dean needed to go. He’d done what he’d set out to do, and now it was time to go find Beth and Sam and decide where things went from there, but he wasn’t hanging around at the camp anymore. He’d been stuck here for too long, so when he walked up the steps of the watchtower, he’d already decided that he was going no matter what Cas said this time.

“It’s been 6 weeks Cas.” Cas had heard this a lot over the last month and a half, so he knew where it was going before Dean added, “I know what Beth said, but we haven’t heard from Gabriel in a month. I’m done waiting.” 

Cas sighed and turned to look at Dean. “I will try Gabriel again . . . if we haven’t heard anything by the time you’ve finished breakfast, I’ll take you then.” That was easier than he’d thought it’d be. Dean grinned and told Cas he’d find him when it was time to go before directing the dog that had been sitting behind his feet to go back downstairs, because they had to pack . . . He was gettin’ out of there one way or the other. . . even if Gabriel decided to be a dick and answer his damn calls just to keep him away. 

Dean finished off the last of his pancakes and gave most of his powdered eggs to the dog under the table while he listened to Adam complain about being left behind. When Adam was done, Dean said, “Adam, you’re staying here. You being there right now wouldn’t help things.” 

“So, after everything he’s done, he just gets a free pass?” 

_I handed it over to Beth for a reason. I’m with her no matter what she decided._ “That . . . is exactly why you’re staying here. You don’t quite get what a free pass is, and it ain’t this,” Dean said standing. 

Bobby looked up at him from under the brim of his hat. “You sure about that, Dean?” Bobby was only questioning it, because Beth had made been the one to make the call on what to do with Sam. He’d toned it down some in the last week, but Dean could still see that Bobby was pissed off with him and Beth for going into Las Vegas without him. Bobby being a pain in the ass was one of the main reasons Dean wanted to get away from here. He was tired of explaining to Bobby that going in when they did was the only time they could do it if they wanted to beat Crowley to Kevin and the tablet, and that they hadn’t gone in alone just because Bobby wasn’t there. Ivan and Yuri, 10 trained werewolves, and 3 angels helped them do it. 

“You’ve gotta look at the big picture, Bobby. Killing him would’ve been the free pass. Sure, he would’ve ended up in Hell, but it wouldn’t have taken long for him to go full-demon and be right back out again. He was mostly already there. Making the Sam we used to know live with what he’s done and earn back the right to walk is anything but a free pass.” 

Bobby sighed and shook his head. “If he even is the Sam we used to know.” 

Missouri chimed in saying, “Oh, he’s in there all right. She may not have found him yet, but he’s there . . . Thought we had things to be doing around here other than sitting around distracting Dean from what he’s already decided to do . . . and Bobby . . . you need to watch what you’re thinkin’. It’s not leading anywhere good.” Dean gave her an appreciative nod and grabbed his bags before heading out the door of the mess hall to go find Cas.

The first thing out of Cas’s mouth when Dean found him was, “Gabriel wants us to stay hidden and observe for now.” 

“When did that dickhead get back?” _I knew he wasn’t gone all this time._

“He says he was only gone for about a week. He didn’t feel like letting me know, because I would have told you, and you would’ve gone back to bothering him all the time. He said that dealing with Sam is annoying enough without you being involved. He will come here to keep an eye on the camp and let me know if we are needed for anything,” Cas answered before looking down at the dog. 

“He’s coming with us . . . uh, he passed the skinwalker test, but he might be a spy for something else. I can’t seem to shake him. I need to keep my eye on him in case he turns.” Dean looked down at Jules and missed Cas’s slight smile at his response along with when he should be prepared to find himself outside of a door surrounded by about 1000 Croats. That was a new thing Cas found funny . . . since Dean had gotten used to Cas zapping into a room unannounced Cas now took Dean places without giving him any warning, because that still freaked him out.

The Croats couldn’t see the three of them, because they were invisible. Didn’t mean Dean liked being surrounded by them like this though. The dog didn’t like it either, because he was growling at them. _What the hell are we waiting for?_

Dean didn’t have to wait long, because the door opened unexpectedly and Gabriel smote the 10 Croats nearest to the door to give them space to get inside while he headed out. _That’s right. You need a key to get in here, and there’s only one key._ Cas had told him about it. Beth remembered this place from that TV show Gabriel let her watch, but they’d needed to find the key first, so she’d had Gabriel do that before he got to Vegas. He wasn’t sure how Gabriel managed it, but he must have. 

Dean’s attention was drawn away from the door Gabriel was closing when he heard Beth’s voice come from down one of the hallways. “Get up! I’m not letting you mope in here all day.” 

“I was fine until you started bothering me.” Dean heard a metallic banging sound, and then Sam shouted, “God, you are the worst caretaker in the world!” _The demonic voice is gone._

“God doesn’t listen to you. He or She listens to me, so if you don’t get up off the damn bed, I’m going to ask Him or Her to send you to the top of fucking –“ 

“Mt. Everest, where I’ll have to find my way down without an arm or legs . . . Yeah I know. You already told me. But just so you know, if you do that and I die up there, I’m going to attach myself to your angel blade, so if you want to get rid of me, you’ll have to get rid of it or climb up there to salt and burn me, and then I’ll knock you off the top.” One of the doors opened, and Sam walked out on crutches with Beth following close behind to make sure he didn’t fall on his face. 

“Good luck with that . . . Casper the crippled ghost doesn’t exactly terrify me.” Dean had to take a deep breath when he saw Sam give Beth his patented bitch face. _Never thought I’d see that again . . . the demonic bitch face is gone._

Beth asked Sam, which one he wanted to take today, and Sam looked annoyed. “Is this really what you had in mind when you –“ 

Beth ignored him and said, “My choice again. Great. I’ll go for my favorite then,” while she moved across the room to grab a set of keys. Sam looked like he was going to head for a couch for some reason . . . must’ve been a last ditch effort not to do what Beth wanted, but Beth cleared her throat and pointed towards a door. Sam slumped with a heavy sigh and made his way towards a door at the back before he grumbled about putting his shoes on and tried again to get her to reconsider. 

Dean took a closer look at her. She was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, so he couldn’t see how much she was showing, but she looked exhausted and like she was losing weight, so he wondered if her being pregnant was bad for her health, because he’d read that it is for some women. “She’s been too tired to eat much the last week, but it’s not for the reasons you think,” Cas said with an annoyed look in Sam’s direction before he looked down at the dog and added, “I think it’s best if Jules stays here. I’ll talk to him.” Cas bent down to look the dog in the eye for a few seconds and patted him on the head before he stood up and started following Sam and Beth wherever they were going. 

Dean went with Cas, and the dog stayed where it was and laid down, like it’d just wait there for them there. “What’d you tell him, Cas?” 

Cas glanced back at the dog and answered, “That if he stays here and guards the bunker, you’ll play that game where you throw something, and he brings it back to you when you get back.” _Cas saw that, huh?_

When the lights in the garage came on, Dean’s attention was grabbed by what was in there . . . He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t this. The more he looked around, the more Dean found himself torn between being blown away by the mint condition classic cars and pissed off that not only was Sam, his brother that almost wiped out everyone on the planet, heading towards an Aston Martin DB5, like he was used to getting to ride around in it, but that Sam was bitching about it the entire time. Beth should have brought him here 6 weeks ago instead. He would’ve appreciated the hell out of these cars, and probably everything else about the place he hadn’t noticed while he’d been watching his brother. 

Beth handed Sam a gun before they got to the car and headed for the driver’s side. Sam wobbled on his crutches before he aimed it at the back of her head with his left hand, and Dean automatically took a step towards them, but Cas put a hand on his shoulder and flew them into the back seat of the car before Dean could do anything about it. Guess Cas was taking the order from Gabriel that they were just supposed to observe seriously. 

Beth hadn't really needed the help anyways, because by the time Dean and Cas got into the back of the car, she'd turned and brought her right hand up to knock the gun away from her and had kicked Sam full force in his right ankle with her left foot. When Sam hissed in pain and leaned against the car for support, she turned back around and went to the door while she said, “Aren’t we in a bitchy mood today? Must really enjoy reading The Tin Drum . . . That or you’re a masochist. Now get in the fucking car . . . creep.” 

Sam limped his way around and got in before Beth pulled out of the spot, pushed a button to open the garage door, gunned it when the door was just high enough for the car to fit through, and pushed the button again, so the door would start closing. She got a little further away to pick up enough speed, pushed in the clutch, pulled the handbrake, and spun the car to face the garage door again before she stopped. 

“I must ask Gabriel to teach me how to drive the way Beth does.” 

Dean went from watching the Croats coming around the side of the bunker to looking at Cas. “Cause he taught her how to drive?” 

Cas nodded before Beth said to Sam, “You’re already losing 347 to 0. Might as well start trying to make up the numbers now.” 

Dean looked back towards the garage and said, “When I get my hands on one of the cars in that garage, I’ll teach you how to do what she just did . . . You know, sometimes I forget he’s the same Dad who used to take her ice-skating and football games, and now she has him back, but he’s not pretending to be the world’s greatest Dad anymore. You think the time she’s spent with him here has been good for her?” 

Sam watched Beth, while he rolled down his window, pointed his gun out, and pulled the trigger a few times without aiming it in anything. Looked like Sam was refusing to play Beth’s Croat killing game. 

Cas shook his head in disapproval at Sam before answering Dean. “I think it’s been good for both of them.” 

A second later, Beth was leaning out of the car window, so she could take out the Croats that were heading for the garage door that was still closing, along with any that made their way towards the car. When the garage door was completely down, Beth changed her magazine and threw the car into gear before she took off. 

Whatever she was doing with Sam out here, Sam was intentionally not going along with it, just to piss her off. Sam liked pissing her off. Sam’s smirk, while he looked out the window, confirmed that. Beth caught it and said, “You’re a pain in the ass. And don’t be surprised if I drug you to make you fall asleep tonight. Think it’s the only way I’m going to get you to stop pounding on my door every five minutes like you have been the last week.” _That’s what Cas meant back in the bunker. Sam looks fine though. Must be getting his sleep somewhere . . . probably what he was doing instead of reading. Why is Sam making Beth sleep deprived on purpose, and why hasn’t Gabriel done anything about it?_

When they got somewhere Beth must know was safe enough for them to get out of the car, she parked up at the head of a trail that went around a small lake. Sam wasn’t whining or complaining anymore, and he seemed like he was trying to walk even though it was a struggle for him, or he was until about a hundred yards down the trail. That’s when he had to stop and take a break. Apparently Sam had gotten further than that the day before without stopping, so Beth was pushing him to keep going, but Sam wasn’t having it and slumped up against a tree. 

Beth tried one more time to be encouraging, and Sam got frustrated with her and shouted, “You’re the one that’s starting to get fat . . . maybe you should push yourself a bit harder instead of making me do it.” _What are you talking about? She needs to gain more weight, not lose it, and so help me God, if she starts asking me if she’s fat all the time, I will end you, Sam._

Beth looked down at herself. “You’re a dick. I’m not fat. You’re wasting away into nothing, so you don’t know what healthy looks like . . . Now move!” Sam gave her another bitch face, but worked harder after that, and when he’d gone another 50 yards, Beth helped him sit on a large rock next to the lake. 

Once Sam was settled, Beth sat next to him and said, “I need to push you into doing this, so you can build your muscle mass back up, because you won’t do it any other way . . . somewhere hiding under all that complaining is the real reason you won’t, but I’m not waiting around for you figure out that maybe there is a reason I didn’t kill you when I had the chance. By then it’ll be too late, and you’ll be dead in your bed.” 

Sam snorted. “So you think that right now the best thing for me to do is to come out here and kill things? Is that what you’re saying?” 

Beth shrugged before throwing a rock in the lake. “You nixed wandering up and down the halls, because you said you got bored, and you bitch any time I suggest the stairs. How the fuck else am I supposed to make sure you get a walk in at least once a day if I don’t get you out of there to do it? You’re scared you’ll like killing again, and that’s why you won’t even kill Croats to protect yourself. You need to see that you can and won’t backslide. Maybe we both do.” 

Sam didn’t respond, and they were quiet for a couple of minutes. Sam looked like he was at peace, and Beth looked like she was tired of having to deal with Sam . . . maybe like she was about to wreck Sam’s tranquility, and a minute later she did. “So, Sam . . . Some French guy named Ansel living in a cabin in the French Alps . . . let’s say he died alone after the outbreak, because he was eaten by wolves when he went out to find food. The local shop was ransacked, and he ran out of gas for his car, so the only way to find another shop was for him to walk there . . . You would’ve brought that guy back?” 

Sam huffed a frustrated sigh before giving her a sarcastic response. “I don’t know. Somebody took the chance for me to find out how it would’ve worked away from me.” 

“How about if Ansel died 500 years ago? Would you have brought his soul back?” 

Sam looked over at Beth and shouted in exasperation, “I don’t know! Is that what you wanna hear?!” 

Beth looked a little happier now that she’d annoyed Sam and went back to looking out over the lake. “I think you know. You just don’t want to say it.” 

Sam cooled himself down some and said, “Yeah, all right. I probably wouldn’t have . . . unless God handed me a manual before he died that would’ve told me how to know something like that.” 

Beth leaned back while she watched some birds flying overhead and said matter of factly, “No, you probably wouldn’t have, because you liked being what you were, and what you were wouldn’t have wanted to do anybody but yourself any favors . . . but even if you did feel like helping poor Ansel, he wouldn’t have existed anymore once you took the throne . . . you could’ve brought back someone that looked like him, but it wouldn’t have been the same French person or soul.” _That’s what I tried telling him._

Sam’s jaw clenched while he shook his head and breathed out through his nose, but he held what he was thinking back until he calmed down again. “That’s probably true . . . but you’re still the one who made sure I didn’t get the chance to turn it around and do something good with it.” 

Beth took a deep breath, looked out at the lake again, and responded, “Good for whom? The only person in the universe it would’ve been good for was you . . . And there’s no way I was going to pass up the opportunity of being able to show you that you’re a moron who built your camp in a city with flood tunnels under it.” 

Sam actually smiled a little at that one. “I thought you said you weren’t gonna be mean anymore.” 

“Why? You gonna run away from home again?” 

“I would if it meant I could get away from you, but you’d probably just bring me back to the bunker again and be worse than you already are, so no.” _What’s that all about?_

Cas leaned into Dean’s shoulder and said, “Sam ran out the front door 3 weeks ago, the first day he had the demon blood out of his system. It’s why there are Croats surrounding the bunker now.” 

_3 weeks for detox? He must’ve been nearly all-demon._ “You’re sure it’s all gone?” Cas appraised Sam and nodded, so Dean said, “Yeah, but he’s still kind of a dick . . . I mean he’s annoying the shit out off me right now. Did it do permanent damage this time, or what?” 

Cas looked like he was using his x-ray vision on Sam and shook his head slowly about 30 seconds later. “I don’t know. I know his soul is very dark now . . . but I think this is mostly how he has decided to converse with Beth . . . Neither one of them are holding back on what they think of the other anymore. That could be seen as an improvement in someways.” _Yeah, maybe, but it’s still annoying to watch._

“Speaking of Croats, you ready to head back,” Beth asked a minute later. Sam nodded and Beth helped him stand up again while she hung back a bit to give Sam some space. Or . . . no, she wasn’t giving Sam space. She must’ve heard something that made her think they had to go, because she slowly slid her angel blade out of her sheath and looked into the tree line behind where she and Sam had been sitting. 

Dean hadn’t heard anything because being invisible with Cas dulled his sense of hearing . . . kind of made colors look duller too. When Sam hit the halfway mark back to the car, Beth started to walk towards him, and that’s when the first Croat came running out of the trees maybe 10 feet behind her. She was expecting it, so she turned in time to drop it using her blade before she put down a second Croat behind that one. 

Sam heard it. Sam saw it, because he glanced behind him when the first one came out of the woods. Sam probably heard them all along. He just couldn’t do anything about them and was trying to get back to the car, or that’s what Dean was going with until Sam stopped and leveled his gun on a Croat running towards him from the trees, shot it in the head, and took off moving a little faster towards the car. 

When Sam got the car, he unlocked it and opened the door before looking back at Beth. She was dealing with 4 more Croats, and after they were gone, she finally decided to use her gun. Sam firing his gun ruined the stealthy get away her using an angel blade would’ve achieved, and now more Croats were starting to come out of the woodwork. She delivered head shots to 3 more before she took off at a run towards the car, checked her jacket pockets, and looked pissed off until she got to the car and found that the doors were locked. 

“Sam . . . this isn’t fucking funny. The last time you did this, you tossed them in some shrubs and then fucked off in a boat.” 

6 more Croats started running down the trail towards the car while Sam yelled back, “I think you need target practice, Beth . . . I’m just helping you out . . . maybe it’ll make you a better hunter.” 

Beth gave a frustrated growl before turning to concentrate on taking out those 6, and then when they were gone, turned back towards the car. “Sam . . . let me in the car . . . if one of these windows gets smashed, because you were fucking around, then say goodbye to your second chance, because I will kill you.” A couple more Croats ran out onto the trail, and Beth had to turn again to deal with them, because the doors on the car stayed locked. 3 more and then she’d have to change her magazine . . . if she even had another one. She’d already spent one getting out of the bunker. 

“Uh, Cas . . . we supposed to just observe this too?“ Beth used up her last round and pulled out another magazine, so she was prepared. Didn’t mean that Dean was particularly happy about it, but he’d wait and see how it played out for now. 

Dean felt himself getting more and more tense as the seconds ticked by. The croats he would’ve gone for were the ones Beth took down in the steady stream that were coming from everywhere now. He glanced at Sam, and Sam was watching Beth. Sam was trying to figure something out . . . what it was, only Sam knew. 

Now her second magazine was gone, but she had a third on her. “This is the last one, Sam . . . and fuck you for doing this to me 4 times now, you fucking dickhead!” Beth shouted before calmly shooting a Croat that had been coming around the back of the car to get at her. Every time Beth went back to shooting, Sam dropped the smartass routine and studied her. Now that he she was running low on her last bit of ammo, Sam leaned forward in anticipation. When she was out, she grabbed her angel blade and had to go with that. 

_Fuck that. This has gone on long enough._ “Cas, I’m done.“ Dean grabbed his gun and flicked the safety off. A second later, he could finally hear. It was weird how that whole invisible thing worked. Coming out of it was like someone turning on the surround sound and making the colors brighter. Dean shot the Croats closest to Beth in the head before turning to shoot a couple that were way too close to him and moved on to the ones running around the back of the car. Cas dropped his angel blade on his way to stand between Beth and the Croats on this side of the car, and Dean moved to stand next to her to cut her off from any more fighting. 

The first chance he got, Cas put his hand on Beth’s shoulder and zapped her into the back seat. Beth quickly leaned forward to unlock the driver’s side door for Dean, and Cas killed two croats that were nearly at it. With those croats dead, Dean had enough time to get into the car, and while he was grabbing the keys from Sam to put in the ignition, Cas used his smiting power to clear some space behind them. Throwing the car into reverse, Dean yelled for Cas to get him some more space, because he didn’t want to wreck the car, and as soon as Cas was done doing that, he landed in the back seat next to Beth. 

Dean took off, and Beth leaned up between the seats with a smile. “Enjoy it while it lasts, Dean.” _She thinks this her car._ He knew she washed it, because it’d looked perfect before it left the garage, but he wondered if she’d looked under the hood. He knew Bobby taught her how to do maintenance on her car, but this was a whole other kind of car. He was gonna check it out after they got back. He’d always wanted to drive James Bond’s car. He’d make it up to his baby. He’d have Cas move her to that bunker, so she could have a decent place to stay and decent cars to park next to that could keep her company, and he’d give her a tune-up. He’d give the other cars one too, but his baby would always come first.


	3. The Only Way Forward Is to Take a Look Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a point of view change after the break.

When they got in the door of the bunker, Beth said, “Sam, why don’t you show Dean the bunker . . . Maybe you could have Cas fly you upstairs, since Gabriel won’t. You can finally see what it’s like up there or the basement to see what it’s like down there. You 3 can explore it together.” 

Sam turned to say probably another dick comment to her that she didn’t look like she was up for right now, so Dean stepped in before he could. “Yeah, why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll come get you when we’re done.” 

He was letting her know that he’d take it from here with Sam, with her, with all of it. She needed a break. Beth got that’s what he’d meant and gave him a smile before she turned to leave. Based on what she was thinking, it looked like she was going to take a shower first, and Dean almost thought about skipping the tour and going with her, but he wanted to start getting things back on track with Sam. 

This Sam wasn’t his Sam. This was some kind of a hybrid Sam. He wasn’t necessarily pure evil, but he still didn’t care what happened to other people as long as he got what he wanted. Back there at the lake . . . Sam hadn’t done it because he was pissed off or trying to kill Beth. Sam thought Beth could handle it but didn’t care if she couldn’t as long as he figured out whatever it was he was trying to figure out about her.

Dean was distracted when Jules came up to him and nudged his hand with a rolled up pair of Dean’s socks that he wanted Dean to throw. “I knew there was something funny about you. How’d you get these?” Dean asked taking the socks from him. 

“Took you guys long enough. Run into any problems out there?” _Gabriel? I should’ve known._

“I thought you were supposed to be keeping an eye on our camp.” 

Dean put his hand out to steady Sam who’d been using the back of a chair to get close enough to pet the dog. Then he threw the socks as far as he could, and Jules took off running after them as Gabriel said, “Balthazar has it covered. Castiel is going to keep the dog occupied and hang out with Beth after she wakes up from her nap. I think it’s time the three of us had a big family chat,” before he disappeared and Dean and Sam were left standing in the living room of some house. 

“You got a knife?” Sam whispered. 

Dean exhaled a silent laugh. “We’re not banishing him. I take it he hasn’t said much to you . . . probably keeps all his talking to Beth . . . spoils her by giving her all kinds of things you can’t have.” The look Sam gave him told him that’s exactly the way it’d been, so Dean said, “He’s sort of like her Dad . . . I’m guessing that him watching her have to deal with you being a dick and staying out of it because this is her pet project, is getting on his last nerve. He’d probably love to smite you right about now, so go with it.” 

That’s when they heard a small voice shout “Daddy!” down the hall. Instinctually, they both made their way towards it. Dean noticed that Sam didn’t have crutches and could move just fine. Gabriel must’ve wanted Sam to learn something from this, and it was important enough for him to overturn Beth’s verdict for a while. Gabriel would still probably put the restraints back on Sam when it was over, but at least Dean didn’t have to drag Sam through whatever this was. 

They stopped when a light flipped on in the room and listened from the hall while a man’s voice said, “What is it, kiddo?” 

“I don’t want to die.” _What the hell?_ Dean glanced around the door into the room in case he needed to step in here, and it was just a little girl sitting on the bed talking to her Dad . . . She didn’t look like she was in any danger, so Dean moved back around the corner and indicated for Sam to wait. 

The Dad sighed and said, “Is this about school tomorrow?” 

“No, it’s about dying, Dad . . . What if I hate it? What if I don’t like where I go, and I have to stay there forever.” 

Her Dad cautiously asked, “What makes you think you wouldn’t like it? You remember, uh, remember a dream about it?” The Dad’s response made Dean take another quick peek around the corner to look at the pair again before he ignored Sam trying to hold him back and moved into the room. It was Beth . . . She was little, like 5 or 6, but the hair color and eyes were the same. It wasn’t Rachel. It felt like Beth. He was sure of it. He looked at the Dad again. Her Dad looked a lot like Beth’s zombie Dad, but he was 10 years younger, and Gabriel had put his own touches on his interpretation of the guy, like the way he dressed and the way he talked. Neither one paid attention to him being there . . . It felt like this was a memory Gabriel wanted them to see, but it wasn’t interactive. They weren’t really in the past. 

When Sam realized Dean hadn’t been seen, he followed him into the room just as Beth smiled. “No . . . just thinking about it. What if it’s boring? Being bored forever doesn’t sound great.” 

Gabriel picked her up to set her his lap. “Ah, so it is about school. What’d I say?” 

Little Beth sighed and answered, “If I like books, then I should like school . . . but what if I don’t like the kids . . . or what if they think I’m weird, and I don’t have anybody to talk to? I’ll get bored if I’m all alone.” 

Gabriel was quiet while he thought of the right thing to say before he came up with, “Doesn’t matter if they think you’re weird. Make one friend, and that’s all you need. And if your friend leaves . . . remember that it won’t be for forever . . . just a little while, okay?” 

Little Beth nodded and asked him to read her a story, but Gabriel shook his head. “How about you read to me and get some practice in before tomorrow. Then you can show them how good you are when you get to that school.” 

Beth hopped down from her Dad’s lap, so she could get a book out of her bookcase, and Sam laughed. “The Hobbit? Little much for a kid learning their abc’s . . . what’s the point of this, Dean?” Dean’s only response was a quickly concealed smirk at Sam’s reaction when little Beth started reading from the book with no trouble. Sam hadn’t caught on to who the little girl was yet, and maybe Dean wanted to see how long it took, so he didn’t say anything. He mostly watched the way she and Gabriel were together.

This wasn’t a way he’d ever seen Gabriel be. There were no stupid comments or jokes or eyes rolling at what she said when she wasn’t looking . . . Gabriel quizzed her after she sounded out a word to find out if she knew what the word meant, and she’d either tell him, or she she’d read the sentence a couple of times and use that to understand what it meant, and Gabriel looked proud of her when she did. 

He was just a normal Dad with his daughter, and it wasn’t an act. This house and everything in it might not be real, but the bond Gabriel had with her was, and Gabriel creating that kind of a father-daughter bond with Beth so she wouldn’t miss out on something like that . . . as far as he was concerned, Gabriel really was Beth’s Dad whether he was blood or not. Dean hadn’t wanted it to mess with her head if Gabriel was just going to be himself now, but it looked like Gabriel really cared about her the way a Dad should. 

The next thing they knew it was daylight, and they were standing in front of a school. Little Beth wearing jeans, a Thundercats t-shirt, and a little pair of Adidas tennis shoes got out of a car and stopped to look up at the front of the school, like she was still unsure of the place. The car drove away and left her there while a few older kids moved around her to go up the steps, and Dean heard a rumbling he knew well about 10 seconds before the Impala drove up behind where she was standing. _She did say she thought she got brought out into the real world every couple of days._

He glanced at Sam, and Sam was watching the Impala as a 6-year old Dean got some instructions from their Dad. When their Dad was done, kid Dean gave him a curt nod to let him know that he understood, opened the door, and hopped out without looking where he was going and ran into Beth as the Impala took off. Kid Dean stopped briefly after they collided and gave her look . . . almost like he knew her before he looked confused, because he didn’t. Whatever it was that had stopped him, he shook it off and told her to watch it before he kept going. 

Sam looked at Dean. “Did this happen, or -” 

“Yeah . . . pretty sure it did,” Dean said absentmindedly as he went to follow the younger version of him into the school. _I knew a Thundercats kind of girl once._ When he got to his class, kid Dean went straight for the teacher’s desk and picked the lock on the drawer before dropping in a frog just as kid Beth walked into the room. They were the only two in there. She had to have seen what he did, but she walked by like she hadn’t and went to one of the windows at the side, so she could watch a bird or something, or that’s what she made it look like. 

Kid Dean locked the desk back up and took his assigned seat at the back. She waited another minute before she went to sit at the desk next to his. Adult Dean remembered all this. He couldn’t quite wrap his head around the Thundercats girl actually being Beth, but now he got why he’d been lucky enough to sit next to her. She’d waited at the window to see where he was going to sit . . . She’d decided he would be her one friend even if he’d been a dick to her outside. 

Dean and Sam went to stand at the back of the class behind Dean and Beth as kids. He thought maybe it was best to fill Sam in a little on what was happening. “I was 6 . . . I think it was the start of November . . . just after Halloween. We’d been here for about a month, and Dad was going to finish up the case he’d been working . . . I had to go pick you up from daycare after I was done with school and take care of you over the weekend back at the motel . . . first time he couldn’t find anyone else to do it.” 

Kid Dean looked at Beth and wondered whether or not he should say anything if she hadn’t seen him put the frog in the desk. He finally decided on, “You tell anyone, and I’ll end you.” Sam laughed, and Dean cringed. _Threatened to kill her when I met her back then too._

“Why would I tell anyone? I hate tattle tales.” _She still does, but now she calls them rats._ Kid Dean sat back and watched her unsure of whether or not he should believe her but didn’t say anything else, and then more kids came into the class. The big kid that bullied the other kids in the class and who was supposed to be sitting where Beth was came up beside her and told her that was his assigned seat. When she ignored him, he threatened her with what would happen if she didn’t get up. _In the real world 5 minutes, and she already has 2 death threats._ Beth looked up at the kid, like she wasn’t scared even if she was a lot smaller than him. “So, if it’s supposed to be alphabetical seating . . . What’s your last name?” 

The bully leaned down to get in her face and said, “Wellington.” 

Beth turned to Dean, like she was clueless about the other kid trying to intimidate her and asked, “What’s yours?” 

Kid Dean quickly pretended, like he hadn’t been watching the whole encounter. He looked like he didn’t want to get involved . . . Present day him remembered thinking that he didn’t want to get kicked out of class for fighting with that kid because the new girl was dumb enough to confront him on her first day here. He wanted to see what happened with the frog, but she was still waiting, so the kid version of him glanced at her and mumbled out “Winchester.” It made Beth smile, and the kid version of Dean couldn’t help but smile briefly back. 

Adult Dean always knew her smile calmed him down, but he hadn’t realized until now that she’d won him over with one the first time they met. Beth looked up at the big kid and said with a bit of attitude, “Well, mine’s Wessonsmith, so I guess this is my desk now.” The bully tightened his fist and kid Dean went to stand up, like he was going to step in on her behalf, but the teacher came in and the big kid was forced into the seat next to where Beth was sitting. 

“Good morning, class. It looks like we have a new student here today . . . Elsbeth, can you come up here?” That’s when Sam got it and went from watching kid Dean to watching kid Beth while she got up and walked to the front of the class. “Elsbeth, we have alphabetical seating, so you should be sitting where Thomas is towards the front.” 

The teacher pointed at the desk she wanted kid Beth to take, but Beth shook her head. “No, my last name is Wessonsmith . . . my Mom remarried after my Dad died and took my step-dad’s name. She just hasn’t changed my last name yet.” 

The teacher smiled and said, “But for now it’s still Foley, so –“ 

Beth cut her off to say sadly, “I’m sorry, Ms. Talbot, but please don’t say that name. It makes me sad to think of my Dad.” 

The teacher looked flustered for a moment and told her to go back to the back of the class where she’d been sitting, and when kid Beth took her seat, kid Dean leaned towards her. “You’re such a liar. Wessonsmith’s not your last name at all. You just took Smith & Wesson and switched it around, cuz my name’s Winchester, and they’re both guns.” 

Kid Beth smiled and said, “Now you know I can’t tell her about the frog if you know that about me.” 

Sam nudged adult Dean’s arm and said, “How’d you know that’s what she did?” 

Dean watched the kid version of himself grin at his new partner in crime and didn’t really have a good answer for that. “Just knew . . . Guess I’ve always known why she says and does stuff.”

Halfway through Ms. Talbot’s spelling lesson, she opened her desk and screamed as the frog jumped out at her. The whole class laughed, while she looked around the room until her eyes landed on Dean. “Dean Winchester! You’re coming with me!” She started storming back towards his desk. He didn’t care if he got kicked out of class . . . He wasn’t going to be here on Monday, and that old bag had it coming. She was the meanest teacher he’d had, and all the kids knew she was scared of lizards and snakes. She was lucky he hadn’t found one of those. 

Kid Beth looked up at the teacher as the woman went to grab his arm, and said, “Ms. Talbot, did you see him do it?” Present day Dean remembered this part too. It was crazy watching it and remembering it at the same time. Back then he thought it was one of the coolest and dumbest things he’d seen a kid do, because he was getting out of that school, and she was staying. She’d already pushed her luck by lying about her name, and nobody usually talked back to teachers. Play pranks, yeah sure, but talk back when you’re that age? Never. 

The teacher dropped her hand, while she looked at Beth. “Kids shouldn’t question adults, and adults know which kids cause trouble.” 

Beth’s eyes narrowed slightly before she innocently said, “Adults have trials and juries so they don’t send the wrong people to jail. Why shouldn’t you do that just because we’re kids? You might be punishing the wrong person. That doesn’t seem right, and you’re supposed to be teaching us right from wrong. If . . . ” 

Sam snorted while Beth continued to lecture the teacher on the legal justice system. “The great frog trial of 1985. How’d she know what trials and juries were? Was she really -” 

_Isn’t it obvious?_ “She’s all kid . . . It doesn’t stand out as much now, because she’s not a smart kid surrounded by kids that don’t know anything, but she’s always been this smart . . . and her Dad was a lawyer, or Gabriel played him as one. He used to read through his case files with her at night . . . let her think she was helping him on the cases . . . probably how she knew about Smith  & Wesson and Winchester too.” 

Sam glanced at him, like he hadn’t expected Dean to know that much about her or to be so insightful, but Dean wasn’t paying attention to Sam. The teacher hadn’t taken it well, and it made Dean smile at what he knew was coming next. _Didn’t get in trouble once when she was in school? Yeah, right._

Kid Dean had been trying to get kid Beth to stop talking since about half way through her speech, but she didn’t see him, because her focus was on the teacher, and then the teacher grabbed both of them by the collar and took them towards the principal’s office saying something about insubordination and left them waiting on the bench outside. Kid Dean waited until the teacher was gone and then grabbed kid Beth’s hand and told her they were getting out of there. The teacher hadn’t taken them in to the principal’s office, so the principal didn’t know they were there, and he figured they had a small amount of time where they could make their escape.

When they got to the woods behind the school, kid Dean dropped her hand and started to walk off until Beth asked, “What do we do now?” 

Kid Dean shrugged. “I have to go pick up my brother . . . I don’t know what you’re supposed to do.” 

“Can I come with you?” He told her ‘no,’ and she stopped before she said, “Wait! You’re supposed to be in school now, right?” He stopped to look back at her, so she said, “If you go pick him up now, won’t your parents know you got in trouble?” His Dad wouldn’t know . . . his Dad wouldn’t see the woman at the daycare again, because as soon as his Dad got back, they’d be hitting the road. Looking at her now, kid Dean thought maybe he shouldn’t leave her out here in the woods by herself. She was a good liar, but she seemed kind of clueless at the same time. Bringing her with him was out of the question. He didn’t want her to know that he and Sam were going to be alone all weekend, but he wanted to make sure she was going to be okay if he left her here, so he walked back towards her.

“What about you? You gonna get in trouble?” 

“Only if I get caught. The best way to not get in trouble is to not get caught.” For present day Dean, that confirmed that this whole thing was real. Even though he’d already thought it was, there was a chance that Gabriel had been setting this up to make it seem real . . . but Dean knew for a fact that Beth had said that same exact thing as an adult when they were filling his Dad and Bobby in on their connection, and it’d caught him off guard, because something about it had stood out to him. He just hadn't been able to place it until now. 

The kid version of him grinned at her. He liked the way she thought . . . it’s the way he thought about it too. He felt like he was passing on the troublemaking torch to her now that he was leaving and wanted to get to know his replacement even if she was a girl. “So, what were you thinking?” 

“I was thinking that if you have to go pick up your brother . . . you should wait until school is out . . . we could hide here and play in the woods, so it’s like we were in school all day.” _I’d kill to be able to do that now. Things were so much easier then._

“What if the school calls your parents? And what happens on Monday?” 

“I’ll tell my Dad what happened, and he’ll take care of it on Monday. That teacher and the principal will leave both of us alone when he gets done with them . . . if you want. What if they call yours before Monday?”

“My Dad won’t be there to get the call, so I don’t have to worry about it.” Maybe he could stick around for a while. His Dad had already paid for Sam to be at the daycare for a whole day . . . She was different than other girls. She liked Thundercats instead of My Little Pony or Strawberry Shortcake. She might be fun. “If I stuck around, what would we do?” 

“Bet you I can beat you to the 2nd branch of that tree over there, and if it’s a tie, I bet I can go higher than you.” He took off running without her, but before he got to the bottom of the tree, she caught up to him and tripped him. He feel on his face, and she started to make her way up the tree first. 

When he got to the base of the tree and started following her up, he told her she cheated, so she stopped to look down at him. “I didn’t say there were any rules, and I had to do something. You would’ve beaten me up here . . . still might.” Present day Dean saw her intentionally slow down, while the kid version of him sped up to catch up to her. Maybe she’d always been a sore loser . . . and knowing that she survived being tortured in Heaven by keeping a tally of her wins over the angels probably explained that, but it looked like the reason she wasn’t like that whenever she lost anything to him was because she held back on it for him and him alone and always had. She wouldn’t have slowed down climbing that tree for anybody else.

But she was never one to just let him win in a game either, so when the kid version of him got to her, and they hit the second branch together, she sped back up while he matched her, and kid Dean asked, “What do we do if we get to the top and can’t go any higher?” 

“See who can go out on one of the limbs the furthest without getting scared? Play Tarzan and jump to another tree? Whatever you want. I picked the climbing part. We have to keep going until one of us wins.” 

No way was he gonna let a girl beat him on who could go out the furthest without getting scared . . . and no way was he gonna let a girl jump from tree to tree without him, so he said, “Both, we’ll see who can go out the furthest, and if we still don’t know who wins, then we jump to the next tree.” 

They spent the rest of the morning playing until he snuck back into the school to grab her lunchbox while the other kids were at lunch. They shared her lunch out in the woods and then went back to playing. Before they knew it, school was getting out, and it was time for him to pick Sam up from day care. “Hey Beth, uh, I won’t be here on Monday . . . My Dad got a new job, so we’re moving,” kid Dean said to Beth while they walked back to the road. 

Sam snorted and shook his head. “I still can’t believe you called her that even then.”

Dean was paying attention to her reaction to what the kid version of him had said. She slumped a little and looked disappointed before she took a deep breath and said half to him and half to herself, “That’s okay. I’m sure we’ll see each other again . . . You leaving won’t last forever . . . just a little while.” 

He’d forgotten what she’d said, but he knew he never understood what she’d meant by that until now. At the time he’d thought she didn’t quite get the whole moving away thing, but she’d said it because of the talk she’d had with Gabriel the night before . . . Gabriel had known that her finally meeting him and then him leaving again would upset her, so in his own way, the angel had let her know she’d see him again some time in the future to make it easier for her. 

Dean should think this was crazy, but it made sense in the same twisted way everything with her had always made sense to him. He remembered all of this, maybe not her name, but the day itself he remembered. He just never thought it was her, because he didn’t know Gabriel had time jumped her back to meet him when they were kids . . . Even then, they’d had a good time together . . . might as well have been one of their nights out together without the hustling and drinking. It was during the day and cutting class, but it was the same thing. She was the first real friend he’d made at this school, and he remembered wondering if he’d find anyone else like her at the next town. He hadn’t. 

The next thing he and Sam knew, they were standing in a different living room at night, and Dean saw a slightly older version of himself picking the lock at the back door, and then watched while the almost 13-year old version of him made his way into the living room and started rummaging around the gifts under the tree. “Hey, what’re you doin’?” 

Looking back towards the voice, present day Dean saw a slightly older version of Beth come into the room . . . _She can’t be this girl too . . . this girl –_

His thoughts were cut off when the younger version of him said, “Uh, nothing . . . must’ve got the wrong house. Sorry.” 

Beth watched him and whispered, “You want one? We could try and find one of mine that would be okay for you.” 

The younger him turned around and almost shouted, “Why the hell would I want one of your presents? I just told you I got the wrong house.” 

Beth crossed her arms. “Come on. It’s Christmas Eve. Why would you have left where you should be and end up in a house you should know isn’t yours if you weren’t looking for presents? I doubt my Dad listened to me, because he thinks its funny to get me the opposite of what I want . . . but if he actually got me what I wanted, there might be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle or remote control car in there with my stuff.” 

The younger Dean looked at the 11-year old Beth skeptically. “Why would you just give me your stuff?” 

She sighed, like it was simple. “Because it’s not stealing if I give it to you.” 

“How do I know you aren’t just gonna call the cops?” 

She looked confused for a second before she answered, “What would I say? Uh, ‘hey, police . . . I gave this boy a toy, and he took it?’ That’s not a crime. It’s why I want to give one to you, so you don’t have to go anywhere else and get caught. I don’t want you to get in trouble . . . and I promise I won’t tell anybody you were here either . . . not even my Dad.” 

If she was offering him something, he should tell her it wasn’t for him, so she could have the chance to back out if she wanted. “It’s not for me. It’s for my little brother.” 

She shrugged. “So? I still don’t want you to get caught stealing.” Not the remote control car. That was asking for too much. 

He asked if she was sure, and she nodded, so he hesitantly said, “I think maybe the turtle might be more his thing. Depends on the turtle. Which one did you ask for?” Any of them would be fine. He just didn’t want her to think he was desperate. 

She smiled and went over to the tree to start digging through her boxes, while she mumbled, “Michelangelo or Raphael and a few extras to go with them . . . maybe he got Leonardo or Donatello, or he could’ve gotten something stupid like a doll, but he does’t like to ruin the surprise, so I won’t find out for sure until tomorrow.” 

The younger Dean watched her before coming back over to the tree and helping her search. Eventually, they found one that looked like it was about the right size for what they wanted. She handed it and another present to him and said, “Just remember . . . my Dad might’ve done something stupid with them, but hopefully he didn’t. You want anything for yourself?” 

He stood up and shook his head. “Uh, thanks for these, but I don’t really need anything . . . I’ve gotta be getting back. My brother’s there on his own.” He didn’t know why he told her that. Normally, he wouldn’t say anything about Sam to anyone if it let them know he and Sam were alone, but there was something about her that he trusted. 

Beth stood too and bit her bottom lip in thought before saying, “Wanna come back and bring your brother for lunch tomorrow?” The younger him paused and looked like he wanted to say ‘yes,’ but decided that he couldn’t, so he looked down and shook his head again. His Dad might be back by then. 

She looked disappointed, but then got an idea, went to the fireplace, picked up a few cookies off of a plate, and brought them back over to him. “Here, take these. They’re the reason I came down here. My Dad’s the best at baking chocolate chip cookies, but he’s also pretty fast about eating them himself, and I wanted to get to them before him this year.” 

The younger him looked like he was going to turn them down, but she stopped him before he could by taking a step closer and gently saying, “These are my present to you, and you taking them are your present to me, because what I want is for you to have something that’s just for you.” It wasn’t about the cookies. She wanted to take care of him. She’d been doing it since she found him looking for a present under her tree. She made it so he didn’t have to break into any more houses on this street, and she hadn’t called the cops. 

If he took the cookies, it was like he was admitting he wanted to be taken care of by her, and the thing was that he did. He didn’t even know why he felt like she could. She was just a kid, but she made him feel safe, like he could let his guard down around her. He could be himself, a kid that wanted something that was meant for just him, instead of a kid that always felt torn between being a grown-up the way his Dad needed him to be and a kid that had to take care of Sam on his own, because even when his Dad was there, his Dad wasn’t really there. 

He loved Sam. Sam was his whole world even if Sam annoyed him sometimes, and protecting Sam and taking care of Sam was his job. Nobody else could do it as well as him. His Dad had to go out there and kill the monsters to save people, and Dean knew that by taking care of Sam, he was helping those people his Dad saved, because if his Dad didn’t trust him to take care of Sam, his Dad couldn’t do his job, but he also knew he’d missed out on something. It’s why he tried so hard to make sure Sam got to be a kid and why tonight had been such a bad night with Sam reading his Dad’s journal . . . speaking of Sam, he had to get back before Sam woke up if he wanted to make it look like his Dad had been there, so he took the cookies and paused. 

He was going to leave it at that, because he really had to go, but instead he closed the distance between them and gave her a hug. When she put her arms around him to return it, it was something he hadn’t known that he needed, but he had. Sam tried to give him hugs all the time, but this felt different. He hadn’t felt anything like this in 8 years . . . what it was like to be the one that was taken care of by somebody else even if it was just for a short while. He needed to get back . . . he could stay here for another minute, so he did before stepping back and bowing his head. “Thanks . . . maybe I’ll see you again some time.” Then he turned and headed towards the back door before he could change his mind on bringing Sam here tomorrow.

They were the best chocolate chip cookies he’d ever had. He should’ve saved one for Sam, because Sam got that stupid doll and cheerleading crap, and then Sam gave him the amulet that let him know that Sam saw what he tried to do for him and let him know that they were both in it together. He'd always felt like that girl offered him something he wanted and maybe even needed but couldn’t have, and Sam offered him what he needed and made him who he was. It changed things now that he knew that girl was Beth, and he didn’t know why. 

Dean didn’t have any more time to think about it, because the next second, he and Sam were standing under some bleachers, and it was dark again but there was crappy music and disco lights on in the gym. “Seriously, Dean. What the hell is he trying to teach us? I get it . . . he made sure Beth was in and out of your life for a long time. Why do I have to be here?” 

It made sense to Dean, but he couldn’t explain why, so he ignored Sam while he watched a miserable looking 17-year old version of himself slip smoothly under the bleachers without being noticed by anyone. He was wearing a suit and moved in towards the middle where it was darkest. Then maybe 30 seconds later, a 16-year old Beth ran up to the other side of the bleachers, checked out the crowd in the gym, and dodged under the bleachers to hide when some students came her way. 

The younger him saw a girl who had her hair up in a messy ponytail and who was wearing jeans, a black zip-up hoodie over a black Ramones t-shirt, and skater shoes and wondered why he’d had to wear a fucking suit if people could wear whatever they wanted to this thing. The older him didn’t remember this at all.

Teen Beth didn’t see the teen version of him as she made her way toward the other side of the bleachers but stopped when her other exit was blocked by a group of teens standing at that end. She looked up in frustration before pulling out a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and lit one. That’s when she finally saw him to her right as the glow from her lighter exposed his hiding spot. He’d wanted to be alone, and now he felt like a freak hanging out in the shadows, so he turned to get out of there, but she stopped him by asking if he wanted a cigarette. 

He decided he wouldn’t mind one, so he took the one she offered while she leaned up against the wall next to him. He didn’t feel like talking, but he could maybe talk enough to make up for looking like a freak. “So, why are you here?” 

She glanced up at him. “I’m not.” 

He looked away and said, “Let me guess . . . guy didn’t bring you and it hurt your feelings, so -” 

She rolled her eyes and looked the other way. “I wouldn’t be caught dead at one of these things.” There were still people blocking her exits, or she would’ve gotten out of there then. She took a pull off her cigarette and glanced up at him. “Now it’s my turn. I’ve seen you around so you’re at a greater disadvantage than me . . . I’d say that you took a chance for a big payout, and it failed spectacularly. You pissed off one too many girls tonight and are under here hiding from them . . . maybe weighing up your options to see if it’s worth your time to try and hook up with one of them later or just leave now . . . There’s every chance you might tell one of those girls you saw me here to get in their pants tomorrow . . . I know you won’t rat me out to the authorities, because you’re smoking with me, but nobody can know you saw me here tonight.” 

He had been trying to keep different chicks he’d been juggling in this town separate all night, and things had gone down hill fast when they all started to catch onto things. He was still here . . . he didn’t really know why . . . maybe it was to weigh up his options . . . decide how long he should wait before he left. He’d told Sam he’d be out all night, and if he went back now . . . the last thing he needed was for Sam to give him a hard time. He was thinking about maybe trying to hit up a bar. See if his fake ID worked. It didn’t really work most places. 

The only thing he’d known for sure when he ducked in here was that he wasn’t going back out into the gym. He hated all the talking and pretending to have a good time when this whole thing was lame and boring and the music sucked. He’d rather be on a hunt. He didn’t fit in with the rest of them . . . He never had. Having a bit of fun on the side with a few girls while he was in town was one thing, but going to a dance, having to do all that bullshit leading up to the dance and hearing about the dance endlessly along with all the other boring shit the girls and their friends and the guys that always hung around all the girls said and did . . . none of this was him . . . didn’t matter if there was a dance or not. If it wasn’t a dance, it was something else that was lame . . . school just wasn’t for him. 

So, she’d nailed why he was here under the bleachers, but he wouldn’t be telling anyone he saw her here. He kinda felt like he’d found the first person at this school that wasn’t boring. Maybe the first person he’d met that hadn’t felt that way in a long time. He watched her for a couple of seconds and took a drag off his cigarette before grinning at how sure she was of her description of him. “Almost . . . but I lost interest, and even if I hadn’t, you’re secret’d be safe with me.” 

She checked the exits again and thinking she was going to ditch him made him completely lose the cool factor when the next thing he said sounded a little desperate. “Seriously, I’m not gonna say anything. You don’t look dead to me, and I caught you here, so why are you here?” 

That grabbed her attention, so she looked at him and answered without answering. “Timing is everything, and nobody would expect the new girl.” 

_She’s going to crash the prom. That’s what I should’ve been doing. Maybe I can get in on this._ “How big of a crash are we talking?” 

She looked down while she flicked ash off the end of her cigarette. “I guarantee you they won’t put another one of these lame dances on in the gym again.” He found himself liking this girl more and more . . . maybe he we developing a little crush. He never got those. Usually, he just went after whoever he wanted for no strings attached kind of fun, but he didn’t think it’d be that easy with this girl, and he didn’t have much time to charm her. If anything she was the one charming him. 

He glanced over her head to have a look. She still couldn’t get out of here if she didn’t want to be seen, so he asked, “Why would the new girl do that?” 

“I got here yesterday and these complete bitches in the lunch room were giving a couple of girls a hard time . . . taunted them, called them names, threw one of the girl’s food away saying she didn’t look like she needed it. It looked like they’ve been doing it to those girls for a long time . . . everyone seemed set in their roles . . . the ones being bullied, the ones doing the bullying, the ones that let it happen . . . nobody was ever gonna do anything about it, so I found out using various methods that those horrible girls put this whole thing together. I got my plans in order last night . . . saw that things were the same with all those people again today and set everything up this afternoon since this dance was the one thing the bitchy girls seemed to care about the most.” 

He knew the two girls she was talking about. One was a bit on the heavy side, but pretty and shy and the other had the full nerd get up but was nice, and he could sweet talk the answers on some of the homework out of her . . . they did have it rough here. She picked up on a lot for someone who hadn’t been around for more than a couple of days, but then he hadn’t been here for more than a couple of weeks either . . . He wondered how she’d seen him around, and he hadn’t seen her . . . he definitely should’ve noticed her in the halls or class, because . . . well, she downplayed it, but she was hot . . . hotter than the other ones he’d been chasing out there in the gym . . . and she wouldn’t have made him come to this stupid dance unless it was to help her crash it, and then they could’ve gotten out of here and had some fun . . . maybe they still could, and the whole night wouldn’t be a bust . . . he wouldn’t mind hanging out with just her while he was in this town, and for him, that was saying something, so he asked if she needed any help. 

She smiled and put on a pair of leather gloves she’d had in her hoodie pocket before she turned to leave now that the coast was clear. “Nope. You might want to stay here for a while . . . Probably mess up your suit.” That was a challenge. She wanted him to follow her, and he wanted front row seats on whatever she was doing, so he stubbed out the rest of his cigarette against the wall a few seconds after she left and followed her from a distance to see where she went. 

She was good at moving around without being detected . . . He wondered briefly if she was a hunter, but put that thought to rest. He’d never run into another kid that did what he did, and he didn’t think he ever would. Eventually after following a maze of halls and doorways and stairs that he didn’t know were there, they ended up above the gym. She went to the middle, pulled her hood up to hide her hair, got down on her knees to remove a small panel in the floor that she must’ve cut out earlier, and pulled out her lighter before he got to her. “You got a way out?” 

She looked up at him, like she was expecting him to be there and said with a small shrug, “Yeah . . . do you?” before she lit the zippo and reached down under the panel. When the fire alarm went off, Dean dropped down beside her to have a look and saw the sprinklers starting to go off. He laughed when he saw the water go from clear to deep red as it fell on the people in the prom. While they were screaming and running every which way, he kept tabs on any of the teachers that might spot them up there but got distracted when she pulled out what looked like a garage door opener and a camera. 

He didn’t know how she did it for someone that wasn’t a hunter or how she’d known which way they would go, but she somehow marked it just right, so that when the girls she was targeting got into the right position, she pushed the button on the garage door opener and bucket loads of what he assumed was corn syrup and red food coloring landed over the top of the girls. “A reverse Carrie?” _That. Was. Awesome._ He looked over at her, and she was snapping a couple of pictures. Then she said they were out of time and jumped up to sprint away from him, so he got up and followed her, because if she knew a way out, then she was his way out. 

She went left and then right down a few cramped aisles between piles of crap the school had stored up here, and he wondered how the hell she’d figured out the layout of the school in a couple of days before she stopped at a door, and he ran into her, because he was looking behind them at the chaperones that were starting to come up now. They’re why she’d said they were out of time. 

His attention was drawn back to her when she muttered, “Good thing I didn’t just open the door,” before she pushed the door open, and he got what she meant as she started to head down the ladder attached to the side of the building. If he’d run into her after she’d opened the door, she would’ve gone flying a couple of stories. He quickly followed her down the ladder and pulled his jacket sleeve up, so he wouldn’t leave fingerprints himself, and closed the door to buy them more time. When they got to the bottom, they took off running in opposite directions before he realized she wasn’t with him and went back to chase after her. 

He almost ran past her, because she’d stopped to hide just inside the trees at the back of the school to get rid of the gloves and drop the hood, but the fire engines were starting to arrive which meant cops in a small town like this would get involved and soon, so he grabbed her hand to get her moving again until they were deep enough into the woods that he thought they’d be all right. 

“Why do schools always have woods that you can hide in like this right behind them?” He looked at her in confusion and she said, “Nothing. Just reminds me of something else that happened a long time ago.” He got what she meant. It did seem familiar, but he didn’t say that. Instead he asked if she’d used corn syrup. 

She gave him a coy smile and asked him what he thought. He had a chance to make up for misreading her earlier. “I think you wouldn’t have wanted to gank a pig just to prove a point. You wouldn’t have gone to a butcher and grabbed the blood there either . . . people would notice you buying that much blood, so you would’ve left witnesses, and even if you stole it . . . I get the feeling you would’ve thought something, like . . . it was disrespectful to the pig if it’s blood was used on those three girls, and corn syrup would be more of a pain in the ass to deal with once it’s dry than the real thing . . . probably went to a few towns around the area and bought small amounts of corn syrup that wouldn’t be noticed.” She grinned and said he was getting better. 

He asked what the camera was for, and she said she was going to develop the pictures over the weekend in her darkroom and write an anonymous letter on the back, so she could slip it in their lockers and explain what they’d done wrong . . . She didn’t want her point to be lost because of the theatrics. She wanted the bullies to have a picture that reminded them of what it was like to be in the other girl’s shoes for one night. She said she’d checked and the two girls were staying in all night tonight, so they wouldn’t get in trouble with the cops or school. 

Then he asked what she was going to do if they caught all that on the security cameras around the school. “Already taken care of . . . broke into the office through a window and cut the feeds before I set everything up . . . I checked them again before I saw you under the bleachers, and they were still disconnected. Couldn’t account for any security cams across from the school, so I went in and out from the door we just left at the back.” 

_Son of a bitch! That’s why she went this way?_ His Dad was gonna kill him if he got caught by the cops . . . He and Sam were gonna have to leave and go to a different town while his Dad finished up this case, and he hadn’t even done anything this time. She nudged him with her elbow to get his attention. “If anybody asks . . . give an alibi for this afternoon . . . eh, maybe the last couple of days, because they wouldn’t expect someone our age to do it so fast. It couldn’t have been you if you weren’t at the school to do it . . . if all else fails. Blame me. Wouldn’t want you to take the rap for something I did.” 

Even if he got caught, he wouldn’t say anything about her being there. It was his fault for not following her when they got down the ladder. She knew a lot more about this sort of thing than a civilian normally would . . . the way she moved fast and without making a sound, that garage door opener, the escape route, the cameras . . . if she weren’t a hunter, she’d make a great one. She had all the basics down. She turned to walk away, and he followed her, because he didn’t want her to go. “What about you? Won’t you need one?” 

She kept walking and shook her head. “Nah, new girl, remember. I just got here yesterday.” _Right. She already said that._ Why did he feel nervous all of a sudden? Chicks were his forte . . . but she wasn’t just any chick. 

He followed her to the other side of the woods saying the stupidest things, and when they got to the road, she said, “So, I’m going this way.” He needed to go the opposite way to get back to the motel, but he’d planned on being out all night, so he asked if she had to go home yet. 

She bit her bottom lip in thought for a minute and shook her head. “I have 30-40 minutes. What’d you have in mind?” Good question. He hadn’t actually thought she would be up for anything. Now he felt like he was put on the spot. She must’ve figured out that’s what his problem was when he took too long to answer, because smiled and said, “Come on. There’s a park near my house. We can hang out there until I have to go back.” 

They talked the whole way there and while they sat on the swings. If he’d said half the things he said to her to anybody else he would feel so uncool, but she made him feel . . . like that was okay? That meant he was actually kind of letting her see who he was instead of the front he normally put on for people, and it made him feel exposed, but he wanted her to know him, and he wanted to get to know her. He talked about Sam a lot and moving around all the time and about how much he hated school. 

She may make a good hunter, but she didn’t know anything about hunting. He’d brought up a few horror movies, since she’d obviously watched Carrie, and said that he’d heard salt and iron would work to keep spirits away and then he said something he’d read about that was supposed to be worse than a spirit was a wendigo and that led in a roundabout way to a few other things. She’d listened to what he’d said, and she’d talked with him about it in a hypothetical way . . . even said the salt thing made sense since it’s been thought to purify evil for a long time. It’s why that superstition about throwing salt over your shoulder to chase away evil got started. She’d liked hearing about the lore . . . and she didn’t shoot him down on any of it or think he was a freak for talking about it, so that seemed promising if he ever told her what he did, and he came so close to doing it. He’d danced around it and hinted at it. Might’ve even said that he’d read somewhere else what hunters were to find out what she thought about it. 

She’d said if there were such a thing as ghosts and monsters, then there had to be people that kept them in check. She said she’d do that in a heartbeat over science if those things were real. He asked her why, and she’d said that science was her fall back plan. She’d stick with it as long as she had to do it, but it was really just because she had no idea what she wanted to do. Nothing really seemed right. 

She didn’t really like school either, but it was because it was too easy for her. Science kept her occupied just enough to keep her interested. She said she blew up the nextdoor neighbor’s garage last year by bringing home some chemicals from the school chemistry lab, but she wouldn’t tell him why. All she said was that the guy was a creepy pervert and that her Dad had to sort it out for her. Her Dad hadn’t had a problem with what she’d done, but he hadn’t liked that she’d gotten caught, and that was why she was still on curfew until she could learn not to get caught. 

Dean told her it should be over after what she’d pulled off tonight, and she shook her head. “Not good enough. I let you see me. He’s pretty strict on making sure I don’t get caught or spotted by anyone for illegal activities.” Her Dad sounded . . . like he understood his daughter and knew she was going to do things she shouldn’t, so she had to be good enough to do them and not get caught, which is why she would be a good hunter . . . It’s not like having an 11 o’clock curfew was all that bad of a punishment for a 16 year old anyway . . . or 15 he guessed if that’s how old she was when she blew up the neighbor’s garage. 

His Dad expected him to do the same as far as not getting caught by the cops or monsters or anybody while they were hunting, but his Dad would never hand out any kind of a curfew or ground him. His Dad would be disappointed in him and think he couldn’t do his job, and that was just about the worst punishment he could imagine.

It was time for them to go back, and Dean asked her why she didn’t just go home and then sneak back out. “My Dad knows where I am at all times. I swear it’s like he’s got some kind of a tracking device on me. He found me in the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame about 3 hours after it closed one time. I know he didn’t follow me, and I didn’t tell anyone I was going to be there. I don’t know how he does it, but he does.” 

In her spare time she did photography or read or went places she shouldn’t. She had a huge list of places she’d broken into, just for something to do. It’s why breaking into the school office and unhooking the security cameras was no problem for her. She’d spent most of her life moving from place to place too, so she couldn’t imagine herself staying in one place for too long. The more Dean listened to her talk, the more he thought she should be a hunter. 

When they got to her front yard, the conversation had shifted again, and he kept saying more random crap to keep her out there longer . . . movies seemed to be the key, because she got excited when she was talking about them, which kinda . . . well he liked that something he said got that kind of a reaction out of her. 

Her pick of the year so far had been Fargo . . . she liked Happy Gilmore, but thought Black Sheep was a let down after Tommy Boy . . . She thought From Dusk ‘til Dawn sucked, because she’d expected more from a Quentin Tarantino screenplay . . . He thought it was crap, because vampires weren’t real, and in the movie, they were lame compared to some of the monsters he’d seen in real life, but he didn’t say that. He just agreed with her . . . she was right anyway, because Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs were both better movies. He hadn’t seen True Romance . . . the title sounded lame, but she said Tarantino had written that one too, so the ending was what you would expect for one of his films . . . maybe he’d give it a chance some time. She looked like she was ready to go, and he had one more thing he could use to try and stop her, so he leaned down and pressed his lips over hers before she could say goodnight. 

When she returned the kiss, he found himself lost in it . . . completely lost in it. There was nothing else on his mind. No hunting or school or other girls or anything else. Just her . . . she felt perfect. It felt like he’d found something he didn’t know he was missing, and now that he’d found it, he couldn’t let it go . . . didn’t matter where he was or what happened . . . as long as he had her, he’d feel like he was home and everything would be all right. He didn’t have to do his job or live this life or look after Sam alone anymore. 

There was a slight vibrating, electric charge building between them, and he realized he’d pinned her up against the big tree in her front yard at some point. He wanted to see where this was going . . . he’d been looking to hook up with someone tonight, and he could take her somewhere else, but he felt like he should hold off on it. He didn’t want her to get in trouble, and he felt like they had time, so he pulled back and looked down at her. “You got any plans tomorrow? Wanna go do something?” 

She smiled, but before she could answer, a light on the porch behind him flipped on, and they heard a voice from the steps say, “She won’t be going anywhere for a while if she’s been where I think she has.” 

Looking over at the voice, she said, “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Dad. You made me go over my plans with you last night to make sure I wouldn’t get caught. Don’t try to play the responsible adult now,” before she looked back up at Dean and added, “Sorry about this next part. He’s sort of protective, cuz I’m all he’s got.” 

Her Dad cleared his throat and pointed towards the door, and she rolled her eyes and went into the house without saying another word. Her Dad gave Dean a disapproving look before saying, “My daughter is special . . . one in six billion kind of special, because she’s meant for one man, and you’re not him . . . yet. Come back when you’re older and know how to take care of her.”

Present day Dean stood and watched all of this from the sidelines. He had to take a deep breath and slowly exhale as he remembered what that had been like with her . . . He hadn’t had to worry about the prophecies. He hadn’t felt like he needed to put distance between them or think he wasn’t good enough or not right for her or worry that he was going to lose her for whatever reason . . . At the time, he’d never planned on leaving her. It’s why he’d thought he’d have time with her after this night, but he never got it. 

He felt the loss of what they could have had a lot sooner and without all the problems they’d had since he’d gotten out of Hell. He’d thought that what he’d been looking for and found in her had been lost forever after this . . . nobody at the school knew who she was. She hadn’t been there long enough for her records to be sent there, so he hadn't known how to find her again . . . hadn’t thought about any of this for a long time. Gabriel had to have helped him out with forgetting it, because it felt like it’d been blocked for him until now . . . The first time he’d kissed Beth that Christmas after she gave him the amulets . . . he’d known then that it felt familiar, and this was why. Nothing ever felt that way with anyone else he’d been with except her 13 years before that. He just hadn’t known it at the time.

And there was Gabriel telling a younger him that Beth was meant for him . . . just an older version of him, but the younger him at the time hadn’t heard it that way. He’d heard, ‘My daughter’s special, and you’re not right for her,’ so he got cocky and said a smartass comment. Her Dad sighed and shook his head before he went back into the house, and the second he’d closed the door, younger Dean’s bravado slipped away before he gave the house one last look and started to walk away looking defeated.

That’s when he heard a voice come from her roof. “Hey!” He turned around quickly and found himself being hit in the chest with a water balloon full of that corn syrup crap. The younger him looked pissed off, like it was the worst ending to the night that he could’ve had, but when he looked back up at her on the roof, he relaxed, because she smiled and said, “Told you if you didn’t stay under those bleachers that you’d probably mess up your suit . . . This is in case you got caught on the security cams. It makes it look like you weren’t involved. We should lay low over the weekend and wait for the dust to settle to be on the safe side. I’ve gotta go develop some film. See ya, Monday,” before she climbed back in the window, and the younger him grinned and shook his head before walking off in the other direction. 

Dean almost forgot Sam was standing next to him until Sam said, “I remember this . . . You didn’t see her that Monday.” 

“Huh? What? Uh, no. She wasn’t at school, so I came by to see if she was still laying low . . . nobody was here . . . looked like they’d moved again.” 

“Why is it that Gabriel got to rewrite the past for you . . . but not us, like with Mom, or why didn’t I get the chance –“ 

“You couldn’t have done it. That’s what Beth’s been trying to tell you, and it’s what I told you too. I know you get that . . . this . . . this is different. I think Gabriel made sure she and I met all the times we were supposed to meet, but none of those meetings changed anything that was going to happen. They were just times that she and I were robbed of the first time around while she was up in Heaven.” 

He glanced at Sam and added, “I’m thinking Gabriel gave her the life she was supposed to have growing up . . . and that wasn’t Rachel’s life. Rachel’s family had to put down roots when she was 5 or 6, because her Dad lost his job after something happened where he worked. He found work doing somethin’ else, but every time he almost found work doing what he was trained to do in another part of the country . . . something else came up, and the jobs fell through, so they had to stay in the same house until that werewolf . . . I think the angels kept them there to make sure Dad found Rachel, and that was her in with me.” It looked like Sam remembered Rachel saying all of those things about her Dad’s job . . . Sam probably remembered what she said better than Dean did. Rachel didn’t really talk to him about that kind of stuff as much as she did Sam. Dean didn’t even know what her Dad did. 

Anyway, it looked like they were staying in this memory until they figured out why they were here, so Dean said, “I’m thinking that if Beth’s Dad was supposed to move around more for his job . . . she and I were supposed to cross paths, all three of these times, and Gabriel made sure it happened, but this time was different. This time she was supposed to stay, but Gabriel couldn’t leave her, because that would’ve changed things . . . Dad called maybe 2 weeks after this and wanted you and me to go check out a spirit case. I would’ve brought her. I would’ve pulled her into the life, because I thought she could handle it. I wasn’t gonna leave her behind . . . ever . . . If Beth hadn’t been fucked over by angels, this is how Beth would’ve gotten into hunting instead of having her parents killed by werewolves or being sent to meet up with us after Cas sprung me from Hell . . . It’s when we should’ve - “ 

Dean cut himself off. He didn’t want to talk about that or anything else he felt for Beth with Sam. Instead, he was going to go see what happened to Beth after he left that night. He needed to know how Gabriel erased him from her memory, but before he did, he looked at Sam and added, “I know that she was always supposed to be with me, and she was always supposed to be a hunter, and I didn’t need Gabriel to show me that I’d met her before I went to Hell for me to get that, so this lesson isn’t for me. This lesson is for you.” 

\------------------------------

Sam watched Dean jump up to pull himself onto the roof over Beth’s porch and went to follow him, but was stopped when Gabriel appeared in front of him. “Nuh uh, Sam. This part’s for your brother . . . and you and me aren’t done yet,” before Sam found himself alone standing outside of a shitty dive bar watching a group of guys kicking somebody on the ground. 

When they broke it up, Sam moved closer and shook his head when he realized it was Dean . . . a younger version of Dean . . . maybe close in age to the Dean he’d just been forced to follow around on his prom night. He wondered what Dean had done to get himself into this situation. A bum from the alley came out of hiding and helped a drunk and battered Dean get back onto his feet and then said, “You need to stop this. You think if you keep this up you’re going to be the man she needs?” 

The younger Dean pulled his arm away from the bum and stumbled backwards while slurring, “Get the hell off me. I don’t need you or her,” before he landed back against the wall and used it for support long enough to get his footing and lashed out with a punch that missed the bum by a mile. 

The bum sighed while he caught Dean and kept him from falling on his face before he put Dean’s arm around his shoulders, so he could help guide him down the sidewalk. Halfway down the road, the bum asked, “How long has it been since you saw her?” 

Dean had become pacified by that point and mumbled, “5 weeks.” 

The bum mockingly muttered, “Wouldn’t waste my time . . . plenty of other chicks out there,” before his tone changed. “You were supposed to be my easy one, Dean. You weren’t supposed to change how things are meant to happen. She’s the one that was looking for you all this time –“

“No, I was . . . me. Didn’t know till I found her . . . doesn’t mean I wasn’t lookin’.” 

“Yeah, well, I could do the same thing for you that I did for her . . . take the memory of that night away for you . . . make it easier.” 

Dean stopped and stumbled a bit while he shook his head and slurred, “That’s all I have . . . never find her again.” 

The bum snorted. “That’s your problem. You don’t listen. I told you that you’d see her again . . . just not until you’re older. You need to finish school. Become the hunter you’re meant to be, so you can be the man she’ll need, and then you’ll find her again.” 

“No school . . . done with that . . . no point.” 

“No, I guess you don’t need it. You’ve got a natural talent and life will teach you the hard way what you need to know. At least think about getting your GED. It’ll give you something to be proud of when you’re older. She’s going to go all the way with it. She’s quite a bit older than you now . . . already has 2 Bachelor’s degrees and shipped her off to England to get her Master’s. She’ll be heading somewhere else with a job offer after that, and if that doesn’t make her settle down after a few years, I’m sending her to get her PhD. It’s easier than letting her go traveling.” 

Then the bum looked somewhat frustrated and confided in Dean. “Learning . . . it’s the only thing I can find that holds her interest long enough that I can keep her out of trouble. She would’ve found a way to get around the way I’m raising her . . . years . . . no, how long have I had her . . . months ago . . . if I didn’t keep a close eye on her . . . I could handle her the first time she met you, but even back then, she didn’t make it easy. Good kid but definitely found ways to get in trouble . . . You look away for one minute and she’s found holy oil and is setting things on fire . . . and the older she gets . . . each time I let her meet you was riskier than the last . . . Anyway, what about my offer?” 

Dean stopped again. Didn’t look like he could walk and talk at the same time, but he was still able to understand for the most part whatever Gabriel was saying to him. He seemed to understand that the bum was also her father even though they didn’t look the same, and he seemed to know that him meeting the girl had been a set up, but he didn’t seem threatened by it at all, because he poked the bum in the chest and said, “Why’d you let us meet if you were just gonna . . . take it all away?” 

The bum sighed. “If you knew what she’s been through . . . I wanted to make up for a few things, but I couldn’t change anything that’s already happened . . . that’s not the way this works. If I did change things, then my brothers would notice and find her, and with the way things are going with you, that is exactly what’s going to happen if you don’t stop whatever this is. I only planned on letting her meet you the one time, but she came back looking . . . better, so I made sure she met you the other two times. Even if she doesn’t remember, her soul does, and it’s good for her.” 

Dean looked down at his chest. “What about mine?” 

The bum shook his head and answered, “It’s been good for both of you . . . until this last time . . . because you don’t listen. You’re making a mess of yours . . . And you’re putting her in danger. My brothers aren’t exactly known for being reasonable no matter what our Father says, and they’ve hurt her before.” 

Dean looked at the bum with interest and asked, ”Why haven’t you hurt her?” 

The bum cleared his throat uncomfortably. “What can I say? She’s like the illegitimate daughter I never had.” 

Dean nodded, like that made sense. “So, if I forget . . . it’ll keep her safe from things as powerful as you, and you don’t think I can take care of her myself yet.” The bum looked impressed that Dean understood that much, considering he could barely walk, and nodded, so Dean slurred, “Then make me forget . . . and it’s your job to keep her safe until I find her again. What about Sam? I already told him about her. What if he asks –“ 

“If he asks, you’ll remember the bare minimum about her . . . but you’ll know her even if you don’t remember her the next time you see her.” 

Dean look down and said, “If it helps me do what I have to do, so I can find her and protect her myself . . . go ahead.” 

“Have to take these memories too. You understand.” Gabriel snapped his fingers and left a healed Dean alone on the sidewalk looking confused before he shrugged it off and staggered towards the motel.

Sam watched all that and said loudly to a Gabriel he knew was listening, “Why are you showing me all of this? I don’t need Dean and Beth’s . . . story or whatever this is. Why do you want me to know they’re soul mates? And did you ever think that by doing what you did . . . you made him pick up Rachel because he thought she was Beth?” 

Gabriel was suddenly beside him looking like his usual annoying self. “So are we starting to admit that Rachel wasn’t all we thought she was?” 

Sam rolled his eyes. “Beth or a hallucination of her made some good points . . . I’ve been weighing it up . . . it sort of makes sense that she’s a monster . . . What am I supposed to be learning here?” 

“Of course he stayed with Rachel because she was part of Beth. He might’ve been a drunken idiot, but he wasn’t wrong when he said he’d been looking for her without knowing it until he found her . . . Rachel was an attempt by my brother to allow Beth to be with your brother the way it was written she would be and keep her kill switch in Heaven with him if she became a problem. He thought he could get whatever Rachel was going to find out about those tablets from her, because the creator of a monster like her always has a certain amount of control over them.” 

Sam looked down at Gabriel and said, “I still don’t –“ 

“Yes, you do. Just like you understand everything they’ve told you. They don’t even know they’re soul mates. They know they’re something, but they don’t describe it that way. Why do you think I would want you to know that if they don’t?” Sam shrugged, and Gabriel said, “Maybe I should dust off my nutcracker game . . . it worked wonders the last time.” 

Sam quickly answered, “Now that Dean’s here . . . she’s still going to be annoying and stick around. I can’t have him without her . . . basically.” 

Gabriel smirked. “They understand each other at a level that makes you uncomfortable and has since you first met her. You think only you should understand your brother that well, and they’ve gotten closer while you’ve been off throwing your toys out of your playpen and destroying the world to get Dean’s attention . . . good move on that one. Nearly killed him and everyone else in the process. You cannot go down that path again now that they’re giving you another chance. They’ve kept secrets . . . they’ve had good reasons to keep some and have made mistakes on keeping others. They’re humans. It’s what humans do . . . but a lot of what they do isn’t intentional. It’s just the way it is.” _How could something like that not be intentional? You either told someone something or you didn’t, and I’m not allowed to be in on it . . . ever._

Gabriel answered what Sam had been thinking. “I’m only telling you this to stop this cycle of you throwing a temper tantrum when you don’t know what’s happening with your brother . . . Dean can read her mind more than he’ll ever admit . . . She can feel what he’s feeling and uses that to translate what he’s thinking. If she gets hurt, the same thing happens to him at the same time, but it doesn’t hurt her, because it hurts him . . . I saw a Hellhound claw through her leg, and it didn’t bother her at all. Castiel healed it on him before I had the chance to do it, and it disappeared on both of them. If something tries to change him in any way, she bears the brunt of it . . . it’s why he and Castiel could work together to bring Pestilence down while you couldn’t. What you felt with all those diseases . . . Beth was experiencing in a car 300 miles away at the same time. If she dies . . . he will at the same time. If he dies . . . she’ll join him a few days later. After you sold her to Crowley . . . Dean had her out of St. Louis 10 hours later, because they always know where the other one is anywhere on the planet. It’s not going to disappear, because it’s a part of them now. They can’t control it, so it’s not intentional. You can’t afford to let it become a problem for you any more.”

Sam was quiet for a few minutes while he took it all in. “I don’t know what that is, but they’re not just soul mates . . . soul mates can only do some of those things. Do they know what’s normal and not normal for -” 

“No, like I said, they don’t know they’re soul mates. It’s something they need to work out for themselves.” 

Part of Sam felt like maybe for the first time, Dean might understand a little of what it was like to have something supernatural be a part of him, and it made him feel closer to Dean. Gabriel interrupted his thoughts by saying, “Some of it is related to the way her soul was . . . Dean’s helping her rebuild it . . . I don’t know how . . . I noticed it the first time I let them meet . . . it filled in the edges around one of the missing pieces. It’s either because of that or they can do that, because there’s something special about them . . . not even I know the answer to that one.” 

Sam nodded to let him know he understood. If Gabriel didn’t know, and they didn’t know how it worked, only that it helped them or could be used against them, then he couldn’t expect any answers on it from them other than to confirm what Gabriel was telling him. Doing research was a lot harder now than it used to be, but he did live in an entire bunker full of books on the supernatural, so maybe he could find something on it in there. 

Gabriel looked up at him and rolled his eyes. “If you decide you just have to know more about it, then no more secrets. Tell them what you’re doing before you do it. It’s where the problems with you started the last time . . . They have a lot left to finish, and what’s left . . . you can do with them . . . but I’m telling you now that if you do anything to hurt either one of them again . . . There will be no more chances with me. I will make sure that you spend eternity reliving your worst hits on another planet. I’ll be watching even if you won’t be able to see me around as much.” 

Gabriel snapped his fingers, and Dean and Sam were back in the bunker again. Figures Gabriel would put him back on the crutches and hadn’t healed anything on him. Dean helped Sam get to the couch, and sat next to him. Sam didn’t know where Beth and Cas were, but they were around here somewhere. He didn’t feel like looking for them or showing Dean around the place. He was all right with just sitting on the couch next to Dean. 

Dean wasn’t saying anything, so Sam sighed and broke the silence. “I always knew there was a reason you didn’t have to say you had genital herpes or get hit in the nuts or get turned into a car or have to remember you dying over 100 times . . . You and he go back a long way, and you’re definitely his favorite.”


	4. Uncle

Sam walked into the room and asked, “Where’d Beth go?”

“Shooting range. Told her if she doesn’t want her car to get destroyed, she can’t keep taking it out. At least not until we find a way to get rid of all the Croats around here,” Dean answered without looking away from what he was trying to find in the archives.

Sam shook his head and said, “Yeah, about that . . . one, why is that her car, and two, why is it that she’ll stay here if you tell her not to ruin that car, but she won’t stay here if she knows what happens to her happens to you?” 

Dean pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to reel in his frustration with Sam. 2 weeks of Sam bringing the same thing up over and over again was getting old. He knew it was new to Sam, but he and Beth didn’t really think about it all the time anymore . . . or at least he didn’t. She did when Sam was trying to throw her to Croats to see what made her tick, but after Sam stopped all that bullshit, she didn’t. It wasn’t all there was to what they had together. What they had was already there before their connection happened.

Dean went back to rifling through the filing cabinet and said, “You only want that car, because she called dibs on it, Sam.” 

“How am I supposed to get target practice in if Cas is too busy working on his project to take me to the shooting range?” _So, now you’re all about target practice?_

“There are 10 other cars out there. I’ll take you out after Cas finishes. He’s almost done.” 

Sam nodded pensively and was building up to the question he really wanted to ask, “Yeah, but wouldn’t –“ 

Dean finally looked at Sam and cut him off to say, “No, Sam. I don’t think it’d be better if we found a way to get rid of it. Leave it alone. She’s saved me with her side of the connection a hell of a lot more than I have her.” 

Sam shrugged and responded nonchalantly, “So, I guess, feeling a Hellhound use your leg as a chew toy is something you don’t mind feeling again after . . . “ _Yeah, it felt great._

“If it means she never has to feel something like that, then yeah, I’m fine with it.” _I really am . . . Now leave it._

“But –“ 

“I’m all right with all of it. Beth can block it, and I told her not to –“ 

“Why would you do that? Do you have a death wish? Is that what this is?” _That’s rich coming from a brother that tried to kill me 2 months ago._ Dean started flipping through the file in his hand, so Sam added, “How do you know that she won’t change her mind and –“

Dean slammed the file down on top of the others and said, “She promised she wouldn’t. She doesn’t break her promises to me.” 

“You would. If it was the other way around, there’s no way you’d keep a promise like that.” _Is he turning this around on Beth?_ How could he explain this, so that Sam would get it? “If Jess –“

“Jess wouldn’t have wanted what happened to her to happen to me.” 

“Neither does Beth . . . If she blocks that, she blocks me being able to find her . . . I told her the only time she can block it is if something doesn’t heal on her. If that happens, she’ll know that Cas or Gabriel can’t heal me for some reason. I wouldn’t be able to get to her if I’m cut up too . . . You know what? That’s not the point. The point is if you could’ve kept Jess from feeling what happened . . . if she knew she wasn’t alone –“ 

Sam shook his head and said, “No, I wouldn’t Dean. Maybe if it was a case of I’d rather it be me than her, yeah . . . no question, I’d rather take her place, but both of us? No way. I wouldn’t have been able to keep fighting for her if I got taken down with her.” 

Dean turned back to the filing drawer and picked up the file he’d found while he said, “Yeah, well . . . when Beth dies, she’s gonna have to keep fighting. I don’t want her to have to do that alone. Bein’ dead and bein’ tortured is a hell of a lot worse than if you’re alive and tortured . . . at least if you’re alive, you know you can die.” 

Sam countered that by saying, “What if it happens after we take care of Raphael?” _It’s not that simple._

“Can’t forget about Michael . . . he wants a piece of that angel tablet too, and if we touch either one of them, there are gonna be a lot of pissed off angels that’ll want a bit of pay back if the archangel they follow gets taken out.” 

Sam was quiet for a few seconds, and when Dean glanced at him, he recognized the look Sam got when his wheels were turnin’. Sam was almost off of this. The thought of the angels was sidetracking him. “What if Gabriel took control? He’d be the most powerful one left . . . and he’s on our side,” Sam said as he finally took an interest in the case file Dean had. 

“Can’t really see Gabriel wanting to be in charge . . . He’d probably set them all loose and tell ‘em to do whatever they wanted.” _That’s right, Sammy. Take the file._

“Yeah, but Cas is doing all right being on his own,” Sam responded while he skimmed through the file. 

“Yeah, but Cas is different than the rest of them. All it’ll take is one that the others will listen to wanting to wipe us out, and we’re screwed. The angels are goin’ on the back burner . . . We’ve got other things to worry about before we get to them.” 

“What?” Sam said distractedly while he read. 

“Those witches in New Orleans, Eve, and Crowley. Just wanted to verify some things Beth said about killing Crowley. Should be as easy as a salt and burn,” Dean answered. The Men of Letters confirmed what Beth said about a salt and burn being a way to kill a demon without the demon even needing to be there. It was from the 1700s, but it should be good enough for Sam. 

Sam wouldn’t have thought it was as easy as that, and giving Sam something to fight against in a normal way without Sam having to use his powers or build a monster army was the best way for Sam to come back from where he’d been for the last year. “Yeah, don’t think I don’t know that you set this up. You don’t verify anything Beth says . . . She really knew about this?” Sam asked glancing up at him. 

Dean nodded. “Yeah and she knows what his name was when he was human and where he’s buried in Scotland . . . even knows where Crowley might’ve moved his bones if they’re not there . . . Well, the country anyway. It’s some crypt we’ll have to find in Guam.” 

Sam smiled and said, “Let me guess . . . Since she remembers everything now, she knows how to get rid of Eve too.” 

Dean headed out of the room and said, “Yeah . . . Phoenix ash.” 

Sam lumbered behind him on the crutches. “Ever notice how the big things she knows about . . . even when what leads to them happening changes, they still happen, like Eve being loose on Earth.” Yeah, he’d noticed. The timing of some of the things were off too, like he shouldn’t have been turned into a vamp so soon, because apparently he should’ve been off trying to live his life with Lisa and Ben while Sam was in the pit. 

“Any idea what I would’ve done if I’d gone into the cage?” Sam asked. 

“You would’ve been runnin’ around up here soulless for a year without me . . . You wouldn’t have told me you were back . . . You still would’ve been a dick that was willing to sacrifice people, but you wouldn’t have killed off the planet . . . don’t really know the specifics . . . Her show skipped over that year until soulless you came to get me for a hunt when I was living with Lisa and Ben.” 

This wasn’t a topic Dean really wanted to think about too much. He didn’t want some of the things she’d seen on that show to happen, like him spending a year in Purgatory . . . Where would that leave Beth if she was supposed to go with him wherever he went? Would he just drag her there with him? 

“So, we were still separated for a year? What happened after that?” 

“Ask Beth, or don’t. It’s a pain in the ass knowing about that crap, and then watching it happen, because no matter what you do, you can’t stop it . . . come on . . . Cas should be done,” Dean answered when they were nearly out of the hall. 

“Yeah, how does he know how to do this?” It was awesome, or it would be when it was done. Cas upgraded the bunker’s supernatural tracking computer. Upgraded wasn’t the right word. He’d made an entire new system. It’d make their job so much easier. 

“Don’t know . . . Gabriel’s been training him on making things out of nothing. After his promotion from God, Cas should be as strong as Zachariah was, and Zachariah could do stuff like that . . . guess it takes training, and Cas hasn’t had the time.” 

Sam sighed when he saw Beth already looking excitedly at the new computer set up and said, “Yeah, all right. You win this round, Dean, but don’t think I’ve forgotten what we were talking about earlier.” 

Dean stopped in his tracks and turned to face Sam. The last thing he wanted was for another person or thing to try and interfere in his connection to Beth. Beth could block it, the archangels could too, and who knew what else could do it? It was his choice to make. If they cleared out Earth and Heaven of all the douchebags, then he thought maybe he’d earned the right to die with Beth and end up somewhere they didn’t have to fight anymore . . . and if it happened before he got old, then he knew his kid would be in good hands with Cas. 

He didn’t say that though. He didn’t get the chance, because Sam grinned and said, “Course if you told me before now that it was as serious as what I had with Jess, then I might’ve understood it a bit more . . . must be love if you’re still with her after all that weight she’s put on while she’s been here. I don’t know how -“ 

Dean cut him off. “Shut up, Sam. And stop sayin’ she’s fat.“ 

Sam grinned wider and said, “Why, Dean?” 

Dean glared at him and quickly replied, “Because she doesn’t care about it right now, but I’m the one that’s gonna have to deal with it if you go giving her body image issues.” He wasn’t gonna confirm that she was pregnant, because Sam was being an annoying bitch, and Beth looked good. _She’s as hot as she’s ever been, and the sex is –_

He was stopped from thinking about the night before when Sam said, “When in like 9 months? Is that when she’ll have body image issues, Dean?” 

Dean gave Sam a fake laugh and retorted, “No, smart guy . . . this one’s been in the works for awhile now . . . You’re lookin’ at being an uncle in 5 and half . . . so I guess that means you got taken out by a pregnant chick.” 

Sam tried to hide his smile while he said, “So, are you gonna make an honest woman out of her? You’ve already got the dog, and –“ 

Dean walked off saying, “Not really her style or mine . . . we’ve already got the ‘til death do us not part’ down.”


	5. Clearing the Air

Dean was sharpening one of Beth’s knives in the main room of the bunker to give himself something to do. _She never takes care of these like she should. “Where’d Cas take Beth?”_

Dean glanced up briefly as Sam limped into the room on his knew cane. “You chased her off with all your, ‘you should be doing this, and you shouldn’t be doing that’ . . . You’re worse than me, Cas and Gabriel put together.” 

Returning his focus back to the knives and hoping that meant he and Sam were done for now, Dean slumped a little when Sam asked, “How long is she gonna be gone, and why didn’t she say anything to me about it?” Sam was a lot whinier than he used to be . . . maybe not as much was when he was a teenager, but definitely whinier than he had been since then. 

“She left you a note . . . It’s over there next to the computer.” 

Sam limped over to read it before he crumpled up the piece of paper and whined, “She ran away from home? How old is she again? Who does that? What about you? What about –“ 

_Dean snorted. “What about me? She’ll be back tomorrow or the day after. Now see . . . I’d think that after being locked up with her for 2 ½ months, you’d be glad she was gone.”_

“Where’d she go?” Sam asked sitting down next to him on the couch. 

“I sent her to a spa . . . Where do you think she went? She went back to our camp. She’s getting Adam. I told him I’d take him when we go to take out Crowley . . . and maybe she’s testing the waters to see if any of the hunters want to get involved in what we’ve got planned. She wants to teach some science classes for the kids, and see how some of the women are getting on in their training,” Dean answered while he grabbed for another one of her knives. 

“Why do you even bother with those? It’s not like she can do much with ‘em unless she’s actually holding onto one,” Sam asked while giving him a side-glance. Dean didn’t even answer that. It was a dumb question. Didn’t matter if she couldn’t throw them. She still needed ‘em sharp enough to stab something if something needed stabbing, and she was good with them when they were in her hand. 

“She’s always got her angel blade anyway,” Sam continued at Dean’s lack of response. Didn’t matter. They didn’t know what the angel blade could and couldn’t kill. Maybe it didn’t work on werewolves or shifters, and maybe it didn’t work on a lot of things that needed something more specific, like djinn. 

“And if she didn’t have her angel blade, she’s good at coming up with ways around having to use knives,” Sam said looking up at the ceiling while he slouched against the back of the couch looking bored. _So, now that Beth isn’t here to annoy, Sam’s starting in on me. Awesome._ He’d take the bait. See where Sam was taking this. 

“How do you –“ 

Sam immediately responded, “Jo told me about what Beth did with that okami they hunted.” Dean didn’t want to talk about Jo with Sam. Beth was the one who never held back on the things Sam had done. For some reason Sam responded to it, and now it looked like he missed it. 

“Beth said you had homework . . . somethin’ about you reading a book called The Idiot. Go work on that if you’re bored . . . After we eat, I’ll fill you in on a hunt we can check out when Cas comes back,” Dean said before he got up and went to the kitchen. 

“So, what’s this hunt?” Sam asked following him out a minute later. Didn’t look like Sam was going to give him any peace and quiet. Might as well tell him. It was something they all needed . . . something completely unrelated to what they’d been doing. Getting back to basics before they took on the bigger things out there. 

“There’s an ogre outside of Denver.” Sam laughed and said there had to be a glitch in Cas’s computer, so Dean shrugged while taking out the things he needed to make bacon and grilled cheese sandwiches and said, “I don’t know . . . we’ve seen lots of things we never thought were real until we hunted them . . . It’s something new. Why not?” 

Sam tried to gauge whether Dean was being serious and responded, “I have a pretty good idea of what’s out there now, and I never got any reports of any ogres, but . . . let’s say it is an ogre. How do we kill it?” _Reports? Way to make it sound like you were the CEO of a Fortune 500, Sam._ Dean slipped up with a snide comment when Sam annoyed him on something long enough, but for the most part, he didn’t talk about any of that with Sam, and he didn’t plan on starting now. 

“For starters, I’m not dragging your ass up and down the Rockies . . . You’re going to research it here in the bunker, and I’ll take care of it.” 

Sam looked at him in annoyance and whined, “I’m not staying here while you hunt this thing, and I bet you don’t make Beth stay here even though –“ 

“Beth’s not getting close enough to kill anything unless she’s sniping from somewhere.” 

Sam was quiet while Dean made their lunch and then finally said, “Where is Cas? Shouldn’t he be back if he was just dropping her off?” _He’s not there as her angel taxi. He’s there as her bodyguard._

“I didn’t want her to go back on her own . . . Cas is sticking around to give her extra back up until he’s sure she’ll be all right.” 

Sam took his plate from Dean and said, “Because of me? They think she should’ve killed me, right? What about Bobby?“ 

Dean walked out of the room and put his own plate down in front of him at the table. When Sam followed him in there, Dean sighed. There was no shaking him today. “We were having problems with Bobby before that . . . She’ll talk most of the rest of them around. Nothin’ you need to worry about.” 

Sam looked down at the sandwich in his hands, and Dean thought he was finally going to get 5 minutes of peace, but instead Sam put the sandwich back down on the plate and asked, “Why’d she do it?” Are we gonna do this now? 

Dean wasn’t ready for it, so he asked, “Do what? She’s done a lot of things,” while he got up to give the dog some dog food that Gabriel left. _Beth should’ve stayed here . . . She had a good set up here._

Dean got back into the other room, and the first thing out of Sam’s mouth was, “Why didn’t she kill me? She could have. Why wouldn’t she let me die when we got here? She must’ve brought me back . . . I don’t know . . . 5-6 times when I was detoxing and saved me when I went out the front door. She could’ve left me. She should’ve left me. She almost didn’t make it back from that.” 

Yeah, it was a good thing Sam was immune to the Croat virus. She’d had to use Sam as an unwilling human shield and put him between her and those Croats when they got too close to her while she was dealing with others using her blade. She might still feel bad about it, but she made the right call, and Sam was fine. They all were. All four of them would have been dead or Croats if she hadn’t done it. “Why’d she tell you she did it?” Sam gave him a look that told him to stop beating around the bush, so Dean sat back down in the chair across from Sam and sighed before he said, “Do you remember that petrified mouse from the basilisk case?” 

_Looks like that still pisses him off._ “You remember what I told you she’d do as long as you went along with it?” 

Sam thought back on it and said, “She’d think justice had been served, and that’d be the end of it?” 

Dean took a big bite of his sandwich before he said, “Same thing . . . she held onto that tablet for months, the same way she held onto that mouse all night, so she could use it to get your attention. You’re serving your sentence now . . . You’ll have to earn the right to have where she shot you healed the way you had to earn your cash back . . . You’ve gotta start doin’ things for other people without expecting to be healed for it and without trying to make things up to me . . . Basically, you have to do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, not because you can get anything out of it. Beth thought you could learn the lesson she wants you to learn . . . I’ve seen what happens when she doesn’t, and if she’d thought that about you, then you wouldn’t have made it out of the Luxor.”

Sam pushed his plate away from him and sat back in anger. “You mean to tell me she’s a murderer, and you’re okay with that? How is her killing other people any different than what I did?” 

_Didn’t actually say she was a murderer, did I?_ This is why Beth was better at dealing with this shit than him. Sam’s attitude pissed him off. Sam never took responsibility for anything he did. Maybe that was his fault for letting it slide every time Sam did something wrong in the past, but he was tired of it, so he said,“I don’t know you anymore, Sam, so you tell me . . . Did you ever make people become wendigos in exchange for women you could force to do whatever you wanted . . . until you got tired of ‘em and fed them to other people?” 

Sam shook his head hesitantly and said, “I heard rumors that there were places like that out there. I thought that if they were real, they were run by demons. I didn’t know what they were getting as payment . . . That really happened?” 

_And you would’ve been above that? I don’t think so. You were selling kids to monsters as food. You would’ve done the same thing . . . Hell, maybe you did do same thing after you found out about it. You just had your demons do it and didn’t pay them in women._

Dean couldn’t contain the anger he felt towards Sam and unexpectedly shouted, “Yeah, it really happened, because men like the ones runnin’ that place are allowed to do whatever the hell they want in the world you created, and Beth took care of it . . . the same way she took care of different men in a different state who dissected a woman while she was alive and forced her 5 and 8 year old kids to watch just for kicks . . . I’ve got those kids at the camp, and they’ll never be right again.” 

Sam quietly asked, “How many?” 

Dean looked away said, “5 at the place where she found Jimmy, Tamara, and their Mom . . . and about 25-30 that were runnin’ the wendigo farm.”

Sam bowed his head before saying, “You knew what she was going to be like when she came through that door. It’s why you came in on your own. You knew how to push the right buttons to get her to do it, because you saw her do it before that . . . The Beth who was in the Luxor was not the same Beth I used to know, and she’s not the Beth that’s been here the last couple of months . . . You’re sure she’s not the monster or that there’s not something supernatural about that change she makes?” 

Depended on what Sam meant by supernatural. Supernatural because of what had been done to her in Heaven? Yeah, it was that. Was she a monster? No, she wasn’t. “If it comes down to whether Beth is the monster or Rachel is . . . It ain’t Beth.” 

Sam snorted. “How do you know they aren’t both monsters? You’ve only got Beth’s word on it that only one of them is. And I think it’s funny that you were willing to use Beth to kill me when me using her to get what I wanted made you think I was a monster. Why aren’t you one for using her?” 

Dean leaned forward and looked Sam in the eye. “When she sees something that upsets her, and I mean really upsets her, the wisdom part of her soul takes over, shuts down all of her emotions, and she can tap into the power of her soul. When she gets like that, there’s no stopping her. She is cold and ruthless, and that’s what she needed to be to be a match for you . . . She knew what I was doing and why I was doing it, cuz I told her, so it’s no different than having someone you trust be your backup. If anything I was using you to bring that out in her . . . and man did you play your part, Sam.” 

Dean paused to try and calm down, but he was on a roll. “I know you kept your distance from the kids you fed to monsters, so I know you didn’t have any of them die in your arms the way I did with Tommy, Mark, Megan, Marshall, Libby, Caitlyn, Andrew, Kevin, Riley, Jake, Brian, Anthony, Chrissy, Laney, Jeffrey, or Cheyenne, but do you even remember the girl at the Luxor? Julie was 14. She should’ve had a life ahead of her . . . She started with 32 kids, and all she had left at the end was 6, but she saved those 6 by gettin’ them out after I told her we were hitting the trucks. She could’ve saved herself too, but she didn’t, because she wanted to stay behind to look after Ryan . . . That is the girl you murdered in front of me. If I could’ve gotten down off that wall after you slit her throat, I would’ve put you down myself.” 

Dean threw his own sandwich onto his plate before looking back up at Sam. “Let me ask you somethin’, Sam . . . if it came down to it . . . right now . . . would you still slice and dice your way through every child you came across or have your demons nail me to a wall and rip me apart . . . then murder more innocet people just to fuck with me?” 

Sam looked back down and shook his head, so Dean relaxed some. “Then . . . I’d say Beth made the right call,” before he took a deep breath and said, “We’ve got time until they get back. You wanna –“ 

Sam cut him off. “Beth wanted me to read that book and take a look at myself to see if anything resonated with me. Ever since you went to Hell . . . I’m Rogozhin and Nastassya . . . Nastassya . . . that’s who I am most of the time. I can’t forgive myself for all the mistakes I’ve made. I always let you down . . . over and over again. I couldn’t save you from your deal and then I trusted Ruby, and I hurt you and Beth and let Lucifer out of his cage. Killing Jo was even worse, because she believed I’d find a way out for her the way you tried to do, and I just killed her. She wasn’t expecting it, and when I told her I was sorry and to remember what I had planned . . . the look she gave me . . . it . . . that part of me doesn’t think I deserve to have you as my brother, so I keep running back to the dark part of me . . . that’s Rogozhin . . . the part of me that’s obsessed with the power and thinks that it knows best, and it’s the part of me that would’ve killed the part of me that doesn’t want to be that way . . . I honestly thought it had.” 

That’s pretty much what Beth had said to Dean . . . except for the other character Sam was forgetting about . . . Dean got why she was using a book to get Sam to take a good look at himself. He just wasn’t sure how to respond to it. Maybe he could give Sam some brotherly advice from one screw up to another?

“I know you’re an ends justifies the means kinda guy, Sammy, so to you it doesn’t matter how we get the win as long as we do. That’s why you think I’m shortsighted and can’t see the big picture. I can . . . I just think the stops along the way are important to get right, or I try to get them right . . . doesn’t mean that I do. Not by a long shot . . . I broke in Hell and tortured souls. A lot of people up here died when those seals started breaking and then Lucifer got out . . . and those people he killed . . . I’m responsible for those deaths too, because I set it in motion. If you do something like that, you can’t forgive yourself, and you don’t expect to be forgiven. You don’t want to be forgiven, because you know nothing you do can make it right, and if you’re forgiven it’s like sayin’ what you did was okay when it wasn’t . . . but you take responsibility for it and clean up your mess, and you try to do the right thing after that.” _That’s enough._ Dean grinned before he added, “So, for the record . . . you’re admitting you’re a chick?” 

Sam burst out in a quick laugh and said, “Yeah, but that makes you the Idiot in the story, jerk.” 

Dean waited half a beat and said, “Bitch . . . I’m not the Idiot either . . . See that’s the problem right there . . . You need to think it’s me, cuz you don’t think there’s any good in you without me.” Sam looked surprised at that either because he didn’t see it or because he didn’t think Dean would say it, so Dean shrugged and said, “Let’s go see what movies Gabriel left around here to watch.” They could deal with that one later.

Late that night after a movie marathon with Sam, Dean was thinking that Sam might’ve been right to push things earlier. It’d helped improve the ease they had around one another. Things weren’t all about the job of getting rid of Crowley, the witches, Eve, and the angels. They weren’t about Beth or the connection or the tablets. It was just he and Sam hanging out. 

He couldn’t get over what Sam did to the world. It wouldn’t be right if he did, cuz the people that had died or been turned into Croats deserved more than for him to just say, ‘that’s okay’. It wasn’t okay, and they both knew that’s how he felt about it now, but Sam had finally admitted what he’d done was wrong and apologized to him in his own way. It had cleared the air of this thing that had been between them that both had tried to pretend wasn’t there, and now they could get on with the job of saving the world that was left together. The problem was that things were never good for long, and he was reminded of that as he hissed in pain and sat up from the back of the couch. Felt like someone was carving into his back. 

Sam sat up with him and quickly said, “Dean?” _Sonofabitch!_

“Beth’s in trouble . . . Have a look. What’s goin’ on?” _Where are the fucking sat phones when we need them?_

“Uhhh, she’s writing something.” 

Dean looked back at Sam and quickly said, “I know that! What does it say?” 

Sam narrowed his eyes in concentration and replied, “It says . . . Get Gabriel or . . . block . . . in . . . 5.” _What the fuck happened to Cas?_ “That’s it . . . she isn’t writing any more . . . or whoever is helping her isn’t . . . you got a way to summon Gabriel?” Sam asked as he tried to sop up some of the blood running down Dean’s back. 

Dean didn’t have time for that, so he stood up and let his shirt do the job. “Try praying to him. It works with Cas,” Dean replied while going to grab his weapons bag. 

“Any idea who it was that wrote that?” 

_Haven’t got a clue. “Adam, Bobby, and Cas are the only ones that know . . . if it’s not one of them, then it might be one of the kids or Carrie,” Dean answered, thinking he might as well take Beth’s weapons bag too. The real question was whether or not he should bring Sam. _Listen to him bitch about being left behind and keep him safe or use him as a diversion to get them out of those walls? Uhh . . . Gabriel? You around? Beth’s in trouble . . . kinda need you here in the next 4 minutes and counting, or she’s gonna block me.__


	6. Demons I Get.  People Are Crazy.

I was looking forward to this. I’d come up with a science project the kids could do while I was away. I wanted them to be able to navigate at night by using the stars in case they ever got lost and needed to find their way home, so star charts seemed like a good idea. 

We’d be doing it out on the frozen lake not too far from camp, because I thought they needed a chance to be kids for a change. They needed to get away from the oppressive walls of a camp for a while. They didn’t hate me . . . even the ones from Las Vegas didn’t for some reason. If anything they liked me more than the other kids did . . . I guess freeing them from Vegas was what mattered to them, not whether I’d killed Sam or not. 

The kids weren’t the reason I wouldn’t be coming back as often. They were the reason I wanted to stay, but Sam was back now, and there was no way I would ever bring him here with the way about half to two-thirds of the adults in the camp glared at me for keeping him alive. I wasn’t scared of the ones who looked like they wanted to murder me in my sleep, because the people on the council got it, and I figured they’d get the rest of the people to come around to the idea eventually. Rufus surprised me the most. 

He whole-heartedly bought into the idea that someone with Sam’s abilities would’ve become the most powerful demon that’s ever existed in a relatively short amount of time if I’d killed him. He said it was better to have Sam fighting with us than fighting with Hell. Apparently, he’d come up with that on his own before he and Bobby even got to Vegas after it fell, and he’d been explaining it that way to defend me to the people around here ever since.

What surprised me more than the support from Rufus was Bobby and how hard of a time he was giving me about it. He knew Sam, and he loved Sam like a son, but he kept questioning my judgement on whether or not Sam should’ve been killed, which is why Rufus had stepped in on my behalf. Rufus looked like he was sick of hearing it from Bobby . . . in fact, I think he said that. 

Bobby was still hurt and pissed off that we went into Vegas without him, so even though he didn’t say that, I knew that’s why he was being a jerk. I suppose he was entitled to his feelings, and I was sure he’d come around eventually. Adam had. He’d been busy with a problem in the camp when I’d met with the others. 

When he finally got a chance to see me after the meeting, he walked up to me with determination, and I’d thought, _‘Here we go again,”_ but he pulled me in for a hug before saying it was good to see me again and finally apologized for being a dick to me. He said he hadn’t meant any of the things he’d said. He hadn’t known what to do to make it right after he said them, so he’d spent the next month hiding from me, because he was ashamed of himself, and then I was gone on the mission to Vegas, and he’d wanted to see me after that, but I didn’t come back, and he’d thought he missed his chance. 

Then Adam admitted that there was a part of him that was worried that now that Sam was back, it meant that he was out. It’s why he hadn’t wanted Dean to leave without him, but he wasn’t good at saying things like that and usually ended up saying the wrong thing. He hadn’t openly bitched to anyone, but Dean, about Sam. Maybe Bobby or Missouri or somebody might’ve been standing around when he had a couple of times, but they didn’t count. 

When Dean left, he saw how big of a problem it was starting to be, so he started stepping in to try and stop it the way Rufus, Stephen, and the Russians did, but he didn’t think he’d done a good enough job of that, because it seemed to be a bigger problem now that I was here than he’d thought it would be. I guess he’d heard things all the way from where he’d been to where I was, just because I was here. He said he was sorry he didn’t do more to help Dean with it when Dean was here instead of being an addition pain in the ass for Dean. 

Admitting all that was hard for him, and he actually looked pretty vulnerable . . . probably as vulnerable as I’d seen him be, since his Mom died. He was worried he was going to lose his family or had lost his family, because of his big mouth, so I said, “I’m actually here to get you. It’s time for us and the other hunters to go back to hunting. We’re going after Crowley soon, and then we have to get rid of Eve and the witches and Raphael and the monsters that are out there, but before we do any of that, Dean wants us to do a family hunt for an ogre he found in Colorado.”

Adam gave me another hug and wouldn’t let go that time. I felt bad. I’d been so focused on dealing with Sam and his annoyingness that I hadn’t thought anything of Adam being left here on his own. I’d actually thought he was fine, because he was safe and busy, but I hadn’t really taken into account that he would miss us that much. 

That night, as soon as the sun started setting, and the stars came out, I got the chaperones together to help me start getting the kids ready. The teachers, except for Stephen, who was on the night watch for the wall, Maeve, Jody, Gretchen, Cindy, and Will were there. They were getting a chance to do something normal, be chaperones at a school function with their kids, be they adopted or biological, and I thought maybe the next time we did this, the werewolf parents could come help. It was important to give all the parents normal parent-kid bonding time that they probably thought they’d never get again. 

When we got all the kids to the lake, I started by having Ezra show the adults where the North Star was and had him tell them a little bit about it. It looked like it might’ve been the first time these grown ups had ever heard Ezra talk . . . most of them looked like they didn’t think that he could, but I gave them a subtle shake of my head to make sure they didn’t address it or ask him any questions that would make him nervous . . . this was a big mile stone for him. 

I thought he was incredibly brave and told him so when he was done. He gave me a smile and a small shake of his head before pointing at me. I just loved his smile. I told him what he did was braver than what I do, because what I do doesn’t scare me, but spiders do, and I wouldn’t on any hunts for Arachne, because they’re spider monsters. He shook his head with another grin, because he didn’t believe me. I definitely would have opted out of one of those hunts before he did that, but now I couldn’t if we ever came across them . . . now I’d feel like I was letting him down if I did. Ugh, just thinking about them gave me the creeps, but I’d do it if I had to now. Before he left to go find the other kids his age, I told him thanks for teaching everyone about his star, and I told him thanks for looking after Dean while I was away. He gave me another grin before waving goodbye and went to go find kids his age he hung around with . . . it looked like Adrien had taken him into his group. 

Then I showed the adults the different constellations I wanted them to focus on and told them why they were called what they were called and gave them stories about each of them. They were to teach the kids in their groups the same things while facing the East, and then they were supposed to have the kids draw the constellations on their pieces of paper with the North Star in the middle and North, South, East, and West marked out around the drawings. 

We’d do it again after a couple of hours, so the kids could see how the rotation of the Earth made it look like the stars moved throughout the night. I kept the teenagers with me, so I could teach them about the stars in a more advanced way and to keep them under control, because they hadn’t been listening to the other adults very well ever since Dean had been gone. Give them a little bit of hunter training, and they thought they could take over the world.

We couldn’t let them turn this camp into a Lord of the Flies kind of situation, so I decided to go over plans for a kid’s council with them. The other kids could complain to the kids on the council, and one of the ones on the council could be elected to join the adult council. I told them that was the proper way to get their points across, because it’s what the adults did, and we couldn’t have the kids take control of the camp . . . I told them they might be able to do it, but they still needed the adults to make sure they all had enough food and warm clothes and to teach them about things they didn’t know about yet . . . things like how to repair the trucks, so they could still go on supply runs, and how to drive, or how the generators worked and were maintained, so they still had electricity, and how to be doctors or cops, or how to make medicine, and I asked them what would happen if the camp got attacked by angels or demons or an army of monsters . . . they’d need the adults there, because we had experience. I told them to look around at the younger kids and asked them how many of those kids they’d be willing to lose if they didn’t have the adults there to help in that kind of an attack or to make sure they all had enough food. They went from being the normal rebellious teenagers they’d started to become back to the mini-adults with responsibilities that most of them had been. 

At different times throughout the night, when the kids weren’t drawing their star charts, they were playing games, and the teenagers helped me and Cas get hot chocolate ready for the little kids at the bonfire we’d built on the shore of the lake. We doled it out for the younger kids in organized groups, so they all got some. We tried to keep it for the kids if it was their birthday or Christmas, so we always picked it up when we saw it on supply runs . . . there wasn’t much in the way of marshmallows for 3 thousand kids to toast, but the hot chocolate was enough, and maybe we could work on finding more things like that on our supply runs for the next time these kids came out here to do this . . . there were about 1000 kids younger than the kids on this field trip still inside the camp . . . they were’t old enough to go to school. It was too late for them to be out and too cold for them anyway. They could come when they were older . . . if this worked, maybe we could make this an annual project the kids could look forward to every year. 

Adam came out to join us an hour or two later. I was glad we could finally put everything behind us. Just being around him like normal again made a lot of the stress I’d been feeling lately melt away. “I was thinking the next one of these we have, we should have the werewolf parents come and be chaperones too. They should be able to do the parent-kid bonding things . . . actually there’s still time. Maybe you should run back and call them on the radio. We’ll be out here for a couple more hours.” 

Adam had just sat down before that, and grinned when I was done. “Glad you said that.” He looked behind us and gave a signal, and a minute later the werewolf parents came out of the trees behind us. 

I saw James first. “Why didn’t you guys say anything? I came up with all this kind of on the fly, so I forgot about you until I was out here and couldn’t go back or the teens probably would’ve started setting things on fire, but it wasn’t intentional. You guys should be spending times like this with your kids too.” 

“Watching them have a good time was enough, but since you’re inviting us in we might as well stay,” he responded with a grin and went straight over to Jasmine. She looked so happy when she saw him and jumped up to give him a big hug. The kids without parents looked a little sad, but I wondered if it’d end up being like with Gretchen, Cindy, and Will, and these werewolf parents would take more than just their own kids under their wing. These kids needed more positive adult role models in their lives. _Huh, it looks like Adrien’s dad is a werewolf too . . . in fact he’s one of the men who helped us bring down Vegas . . . must be where Adrien gets it from._

“I called them after you left. Figured you forgot, and I told you I’d have your back from now on,” Adam said pulling out a flask to add to the hot chocolate I’d given him. He was definitely Dean’s brother anyway. “A good hunting partner knows when their partner’s forgotten to do or bring things,” he added, referencing one of the first hunts I’d brought him on with me. He hadn’t brought enough salt shells to get the job done on the spirit we were hunting, so I’d brought extra for him. 

“Like angel blades and werewolf parents . . . nice catch,” I answered before declining the offer of his flask.

He watched me for a few seconds before he ducked his head and asked, “What’s he like now?” I told him to wait while the next group of kids came up for hot chocolate. 

When we were done with that, I sat back down next to him and said, “He’s a giant pain in the ass, but at least he’s not being a sneaky pain in the ass . . . I can honestly say, he’ll never do what he did again. I give him a lot of books to read that have nothing to do with hunting and try to draw parallels between the characters in the books and him to get him to see the good and the bad in him . . . He knows about my connection to Dean . . . Gabriel told him about it after Dean got there, so he wouldn’t start feeling left out and go dark side again, and I think that seemed to help him the most, because he wants to be let in on the secrets. He and Dean argue about our connection a lot. He thinks it’s too dangerous for Dean. He doesn’t want to lose him again. He thinks Dean should let me block it. Dean doesn’t . . . oh yeah, you don’t know I can do that now. I figured it out in Vegas. Dean told me not to do it.” Adam looked like he might agree with Sam on that one, so I changed the subject and said, “He calls me fat a lot.” 

Adam laughed, so I said drily, “I don’t know what he’s talking about . . . I think I hide being 20 weeks pregnant pretty well. I think the coat helps hide it up here in the North . . . I mean you didn’t even notice it when you hugged me earlier.” 

Adam’s eyes got huge. “Really? I’m gonna be an uncle? I actually thought the same thing . . . you know . . . you were putting on weight, because you weren’t doin’ anything but sitting around and having Gabriel give you chocolate cake around the clock . . . Who else knows?” 

“Dr. Thomas . . . she’s the one who told me, the werewolves can hear the heartbeat, the Russians, because they were the ones that had to deal with my food cravings, you . . . Cas knew as soon as he saw me, so he knew before the doctor . . . he’s the godfather . . . Dean told him he had to bring our kid presents every couple of months and Gabriel’s looking forward to being an adopted grandfather . . . Sam . . . he’s still a dick and calls me fat, but it’s hard to hide it from someone you live with day in and day out, especially when you’re halfway there.” 

Adam looked like he was running through the dates in his head and piecing together a few things, so I said, “It’s probably part of the reason Dean and I were so secretive after we got back from closing the Devil’s Gate in Wyoming. We just wanted a chance to be together and be private about being together before we couldn’t hide it anymore . . . and it’s not in the prophecies, so not even Chuck knows about it. I don’t know why.” 

He asked all kinds of questions I didn’t have the answers to after that, like if I knew whether or not it was a boy or a girl. I told him he could ask Cas after Cas got done flying the teenagers around the lake in a game they’d made up, but Cas probably wouldn’t tell him, because Gabriel hated to spoil surprises and told him not to tell anyone. 

An hour later Adam was still talking about it. He was really getting excited about it for some reason. When I asked why, he shrugged and said, “I don’t know . . . I already thought of you as family before I did Dean or Sam, and this just makes it . . . kind of official, and plus it’s something to look forward to with all the crap that’s happened lately.” Well, he could babysit then, because he’d probably be better at that than me.

I was prevented from saying something along those lines, because Missouri and Pamela came out, and Missouri said, “We need to talk, and you need to get these kids back to the camp.” _Can’t these kids ever do anything normal without it being screwed all to hell?_

All that were left out there now were the teenagers, because the smaller kids had gone back in about a half hour ago. It was a Friday, and I thought . . . ‘hey, why not let teenagers stay out all night on the weekend for once without having to take care of little kids’ . . . apparently, because bad things happen when you do. 

I stood up and told Ty to start getting the others ready to go back in . . . He was the unofficial leader of the older kids, the way Ben was of the younger kids. He looked like he wanted to argue with me on it until he saw that I was being serious, so he nodded and started making his way around to the different groups to tell them it was time to go back. There was a lot of groaning and complaining, but they still slowly got up one-by-one. They all looked so normal and happy, and it pissed me off that this was being screwed up for them. 

“I know what I said, but something’s come up . . . Adam and I will get it sorted out, and next time we’ll stay out until the sun comes up!” They moved a little faster after I yelled that, because now I was the one telling them they had to go. A couple of them asked if they could bring flasks, like Adam had the next time. “Uhh . . . no . . . the last thing I need to deal with is 500 drunk teenagers playing with fire . . . and where the hell did you get flasks?” Some of them laughed at that while Pamela and Cas started to lead them back to the camp. When the last one passed us, Adam and I fell in behind them with Missouri, and I asked her what was going on.

“Hopefully nothing if we got them moving fast enough . . . I told you that you shouldn’t stay long . . . Castiel told you the same thing.” _Yeah, she did. They both did, but one night isn’t staying for too long, is it?_

Adam looked at Missouri and said, “Are you telling me we’re running away from the people here that are pissed off about Sam? How’d they get out of the camp without anyone noticing?”

“Who’s given Beth the most problems? Humans or monsters? And all those kids have been talkin’ about all day was this camp out . . . you think the ones against her didn’t hear that, know where she’d be, and start plannin’? How many people on the guard towers and at the gate are on her side? Not as many as you think.” 

Adam took one look at me, and something that looked like worry flashed across his face for a few seconds . . . I assume he was thinking about when Jo shot me. That still stuck out as a bad memory for him. He told the kids to move faster . . . we had a little ways to go until we were out of the woods, and then the guards on the wall could cover the kids, even if not all of the guards would cover me . . . some of them might try to take a shot at me. Maybe I’d hang out in the woods until Cas got all the kids safe inside the walls.

A minute later, the first kids were coming out of the trees when Adam cried out in pain, seconds before I heard the gunshot . . . _Someone’s sniping from the right._ Adam leaned against a tree for support, and Cas left the kids at the front of the procession with Pamela and came back to us to heal Adam. 

“Missouri! Is it safe for them in there, or are they going to shoot at all of us?!” She looked back towards the walls and then at me before shaking her head, like she couldn’t say for sure. “The kids in there okay?” 

“The are for now.” _For now? What the fuck is happening?_ “Long as they do what they’re told they’ll be all right.” Do what they’re told? They won’t do what they’re told, or at least some of them won’t. Adrien . . . Ben . . . however many follow them . . . get the teens somewhere safe and then worry about the ones in there.

“You and Pamela keep the kids together and moving. Take them somewhere safe. I trust you to know where that is.” She turned to herd the kids into another direction, and I looked up at Adam. He was shaken but okay, thanks to Cas. _Once I get Adam out of here and make sure the kids are all right, I’ll go._ “Cas, can you take him to the bunker? Make sure . . . fuck . . . that was a lot closer to his head. Why the fuck are they aiming at him? Cas, I need you to get him out of -” 

Cas was about to put his hand on Adam’s shoulder, and Adam stopped him. “I’m fine, Beth . . . He healed me. We’re partners. I’m not leaving without –“ That’s when Jenna came running up beside us, and Adam started yelling at her. “What the Hell are you doing back here, Jenna? You should be -“ 

I cut him off. “Probably normal teenager things. I wouldn’t have gone either . . . probably would’ve stayed behind to see what was going on and help if I thought I could . . . Cas, can you take her to Missouri and get inside the camp to see what the situation is like in there? I need to know how many on the wall are not on our side, where the council is.” Cas nodded and left with Jenna, and me giving that order was a big mistake, but I didn’t know it at the time. 

I got my handgun out and said, “Come on. Stay low, move fast . . . just like on a hunt. Use the trees for cover,” before I grabbed Adam and pulled him with me. 

“Yeah, thanks . . . I think I remember.” 

“Yeah, I know. It was more for me than it was for you.” We moved to the next tree, and whoever was sniping from the left missed us completely a couple of times, so they must be a weak shooter. _Head for the known weak link in their line._ Heading left, to get around the camp, I had no idea how many people were out here hunting us, but I had the feeling they were closing in around us . . . we needed to get outside their line and make a break towards Jess’s outpost. The problem was I hadn’t seen any of them yet. 

We got a good 250 feet before Adam yelled out in pain again and dipped half way between two trees. _Where’d they shoot him this time? His calf. Could be worse, but it limits mobility. Stay calm. The sniper behind us is still there and reasonably good._ “Of course, monsters never really shot at us except that one time . . . it looks like I’m not the one that needs the bulletproof amulet anymore.” I got him to a tree to provide some cover for our backs and took the amulet off, so I could put it on him. 

He gave me a faint smile and said, “You know that only works for ghost bullets, knives, and bayonets, right? Are the kids all out?” I did know that about the amulet, but I still felt better giving it to him. It was sort of like our lucky charm. We’d always traded it back and forth, depending on the victim type, whether we were hunting spirits or not. I looked around and was about to say I didn’t see any kids, but then I caught a glimpse of Ty stuck behind a tree.

 

“Fuck . . . no. There’s Ty. I’m sure there are more out here . . . So much for psychic babysitters,” I answered, before having to take careful aim and shoot the left knees out of two men who came into guns blazing in Ty’s direction . . . They were shooting at him, not me and not Adam. 

_They’re scared of the teens now. They see them training everyday. They know how good they are, and the teens don’t listen to them. These teens were never supposed to get back inside those walls. I gave them exactly what they wanted by keeping the teens out here with me. Kill me and put the teens they can’t control into exile at the same time . . . Tell me Missouri has the rest of the teenagers with her. Any of the ones caught trying to defend me will be seen as enemy combatants . . . Where the fuck is Cas? … It’s taking too long for him to come back. Why? … Those dickheads probably warded the walls . . . you gave them what they wanted again by sending him in there . . . you need to find a way to save Cas now on top of the kids they’ve got barricaded behind those walls . . . you need to think about Dean . . . Cas isn’t with him . . . the promise not to block Dean doesn’t apply unless Gabriel helps Dean out._

I covered Ty until he was next to us, and then instead of giving him a hard time about being in the thick of it with us, I gave him something he could do to help. “I need you to do something. I need you to take your knife and carve a message into my back . . . Dean’ll get it . . . what happens to me will happen to him, so he’ll know what it says and find a way to come help.” Then I told him what to write. 

Ty glanced at Adam to see if I was serious, and Adam gave him a nod. Adam wasn’t looking great. I needed to help him stop the bleeding, but first, I needed to take out these two assholes that were trying to make their way around the trees to our right to get behind us. Go for the right knees this time. Bit of variety. 4 down. How many to go? Ty pulled out his blade, but looked hesitant, so I said, “I know it’s weird . . . I can’t feel it if that helps . . . Dean can, and I don’t want him to feel me getting shot, so make it fast,” before I took off my coat and tore a strip off the bottom of my flannel, so I could work on Adam’s leg, while Ty did his thing.

When it was all done, I looked at my watch. _5 minutes._ I knew Dean would hate it, but at least I was giving him 5 minutes. Ty put his hand on my arm to get my attention and said, “Are you . . . you know?” I gave him a blank look before I caught movement in the background and pushed him down to blow out the knee of a woman I saw about 150 feet behind him. “Are you pregnant?” Ty asked quickly getting to his knees when she was down. 

“Oh, yeah . . . I’m halfway there . . . Help me get Adam up . . . I need you to take him to Pamela. She should be able to bandage his leg and keep it from getting worse until I can get Cas back . . . the guards on the wall will shoot at both of you, so stay in the trees and follow the woods around until you get to the part of the woods at front gates. I think that’s where they rest of them will be. That’s the direction it looked like Missouri was taking them. Once you get there, keep the others together, calm, and away from the gates.” 

Adam looked at me and said, “I’m not letting you stay out here on your own.” _Nice try._

“Yeah, you are, Adam . . . They’re aiming for you more than they are me. It’ll thin out what’s left of them if they have to separate to follow us . . . just keep your eyes open for the ones that decide to follow you and have Ty’s back. Someone needs to make sure he gets somewhere safe.” 

He snorted. “You used to be better at coming up with ways of shooting me down.” 

I glanced at him before shooting a man in the knee that I saw coming out of the trees to our left and said, “Yeah, well . . . in all those times, you never got shot. This is my fault, and I need you to be somewhere safer than here if you want me to get out of this alive.” 

I turned to shoot the knee of another man I’d heard trying to move in behind us, and Adam said, “Yeah, all right, but now I know why you hate when Dean says that kind of crap to you.” _Yeah, well now I know why he says it._ Adam slung an arm around Ty’s shoulder and nodded that he was ready, so I stayed where I was, and they headed off to the left, while I went back to the right. I kept my attention half on them and half on my surroundings to make sure they made it all right.

They were nearly out of sight when I saw Adam fall . . . _Did he fall or was he shot? He’s not moving, and Ty is . . . scared . . . Fuck._ Ty wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings. Why would he? He was just a kid. He shouldn’t even be in this kind of a situation in the first place . . . especially after everything he’d already been through. I saw another man heading towards him, so I shot him in the knee before I took off running towards them. When I got there, I saw that whoever had shot Adam had shot him in the chest. He was struggling to breath. No. We couldn’t stop there, so I holstered my gun, picked him up under his arms and started dragging him with me towards the camp while telling Ty to stay close. _I’ll hand myself over at the gates if they let Adam in to see the doctor._

When another man came into my line of sight, I put Adam down, pushed Ty back against a tree, pulled out my handgun, and shot the guy in the knee when he made a move to a tree closer to us before I bent down and started dragging Adam with me again. That was 9 down. I wish I’d asked Missouri how many I was looking at here. I heard movement from my left and right, dropped Adam, and Ty took cover himself this time, while I shot the man to my left first, and drew my gun on the man to my right after he shot at Ty. 

He stopped, and I shouted into the trees, “You shoot at Ty again, and I’m gonna start taking head shots,” before I shot the guy in the right knee, and picked Adam up again . . . 11 down . . . There was a lull in the firing after that, so I kept going and tried to keep Adam conscious.

“Worse . . . than the guy . . . who shot me.” I glanced down at him, and he started coughing up blood. He was probably right. I probably was hurting him worse than the guy that shot him, but I didn’t have any other way to get him to the doctor. A few minutes later, we all had to take cover again as a couple more men decided to try their luck. Neither aimed at Ty that time, so they both ended up with one leg that worked and stayed down when I was done with them. 

“13 down . . . who knows how many left to go.” I glanced down at Adam when he didn’t respond. Instead of picking him up again, I ran my hand through his hair to comfort him. _He’s going gray, looks confused, and is sweating. He’s going into shock . . . I don’t think he’s going to make it. I don’t want him to die while I’m dragging him somewhere else. Maybe I should stay here with him and let him go in peace . . . no don’t give up. You can do this. That was a through and through, so the bullet’s not in there doing more damage . . . keep going._

I was never gonna leave my first aid kit out of my sight again no matter where I was . . . I’d gotten too used to Cas being around, and I hadn’t thought I’d need it coming back to the camp or on a fucking campfire night with the kids . . . I could’ve bandaged up his leg and helped with his collapsed lung if I had it. Without it, I couldn’t do anything. 

I was nearly to the break in the trees with him and Ty when Randy showed his stupid fucking face. I would’ve shot him in the leg too, but he was holding Andrea hostage. “Let her go, Randy, let’s talk about this.” _What the hell am I going to do with Adam? He doesn’t have time for this, and what about Ty?_

“Seems to me . . . you’re not really in a position to negotiate here,” Randy said using his knife to make a nick in the Andrea’s neck. It drew a decent amount of blood. _What the fuck is he doing? He’s an idiot, but I didn’t think he had it in him to cut little girl’s necks._ I put my arm out to stop Ty from moving as more of Randy’s men came out of the trees to surround us.

“Okay . . . all right . . . you let her go. You can have me. She and Ty can take Adam –“ 

“Her or Adam or Ty . . . not all three . . . you’re the one that thinks you make all the decisions around here . . . let’s see what you do when it’s someone you care about or two of the kids you claim to care about.” One of his men grabbed Ty from behind. Adam touched the back of my leg, and I knew what he wanted me to do. I didn’t look at him, because I knew what I had to do too . . . and I didn’t want to do it, but I still relaxed my hold on the gun and pointed it up before putting it on the ground.

“Take me, and let Andrea and Ty go.” Randy hesitated for a second before finally releasing her, but he put his hand up to stop the guy holding onto Ty from letting him go too. She apologized when she passed me, so while I kept my eyes on Randy, I shook my head and said, “It’s all right . . . I would’ve done the same thing. Go find the others . . . don’t leave the trees, stay away from the walls, and don’t get shot if there are any more men out here in the woods.” She paused at Adam and he nodded for her to keep going before she looked at Ty who did the same thing. Then she looked back at Randy with a look that was full of as much heartbreak as it was hatred before she took off at a run through the trees.

I waited until I was sure Andrea would make it without anything else holding her up and then focused on Randy. Maybe what was left of the gang in the woods was all here now. “Now what, Randy? Or did you not think this part through?” 

“Well, I was thinkin’ we’d sit here, and you could watch your brother die, and then we’ll see what you do to me and the rest of us . . . let’s see if losin’ someone that matters to you makes you show us mercy the same way you did that demon spawn after everything he did.” 

_It certainly is one way to try and teach me a lesson . . . I guess Sam was right. There are negative consequences for what I did in the Luxor . . . He was just wrong about it being because I smashed the tablet._

“Seems a little extreme, Randy. You’d let a man die that’s opened the doors of his home to you . . . who picked you up on the road with Dean to come here . . . who’s done everything he can for this camp and the people living here . . . you’d do that just to prove a point? Now, I have no doubt that the people involved in this think that there will be no consequences for that. It’s obvious they’ve taken over the camp, because I know the council wouldn’t have allowed this, but there are 9 outposts full of adults that all enforce the same laws this camp does. You don’t have them on side, or they’d be out here with you. And in case you’re thinking that you could hole up in there and wait it out because of those walls we built, the werewolves know how to breach those walls because of those safety drills you run all the time. There will be no siege. You think I’m not smart enough to let you all live, so the outposts can deal with you if Adam dies . . . just to disprove your point?” 

The outposts were all heavily manned with well-trained guards of their own. It was something to consider, and he hadn’t, and I was guessing none of the people behind the walls of our camp had considered it either. He looked perplexed for a few seconds, so I said calmly, “I’ll tell you what . . . if you have one of your men help Ty take Adam into the camp, so the doctor can try to save him . . . you can have your fair shot with me . . . I’ll even let you keep the gun.” He was about 50% there, so I added, “Come on, Randy. We both know this is about all the times you felt hard done by when I told you what to do or put you in your place . . . you can even have the first hit.” 

He nodded at the guy holding onto Ty to tell him to let him go. _Wow. That was some sucker punch._ I put myself between Ty and the men now pointing their guns at him after he clocked the guy who’d been holding him. “Ty . . . if you want to save Adam, you need to help him get him to the doctor . . . he doesn’t have a whole lot of time. Pass him off at the gate to guards. Do not go into the camp.” Ty looked from me to Adam and nodded, but he gave Randy a similar look to the one Andrea gave him before he took Adam’s shoulders and the man he’d punched took Adam’s feet. Adam was unconscious by that point, and I saw the blood dripping down the back of his shirt as they lifted him. I honestly didn’t think he would make it, but at least he had more of a chance now than he would’ve had, and Ty had a reasonable chance at getting somewhere safe. _Sorry about this, Dean . . . I think your time was up about 5 minutes ago._

The 4 men with guns kept them pointed at me, and Randy told them to kill me if I tried anything funny. _Funny? What constitutes as funny?_ When I said I’d let him take a free hit, I wasn’t expecting him to pistol-whip me. Hitting someone that way showed how stupid he was. He could’ve easily shot himself by doing it, because the safety was off. _Somebody’s seen one too many movies._

I tried to get back on my feet, and he hit me with his gun again, which knocked me out . . . until it didn’t, and I was fine . . . _What the hell? Is Gabriel with Dean now? Does he know how to unblock me from blocking Dean or did I lose my hold on Dean’s connection to me after Randy hit me the first time._ I wondered how fast they’d be able to get here . . . I just needed to keep it together until they could come. _Stay down or fight back? . . . You don’t know what they’ll do if you stay down . . . fight back._

I used the element of surprise to my advantage and quickly swiped Randy’s legs out from under him, so I could get back on my feet . . . Apparently me doing anything funny was to get the upperhand at all, because when I kicked Randy in the face after he rolled over and got to his hands and knees, one of them shot at me. _Which one is the fucking sniper, or did I already take him out? Maybe he or she is still out there? Wasn’t that guy . . . I was like 5 feet away from him, and he missed. Maybe I should just check. Dean’s the one that feels things . . . nope, the guy just missed me_

Didn’t miss the guy standing across from him though, because that guy started shouting about how he’d been shot. _Why are they getting pissed at me for that? I didn’t shoot him . . . Uh, just go already . . . you just got shot in the arm . . . probably shouldn’t hang around and sit against a tree to see how this goes down . . . idiot._ Before I had a chance for my fair fight with Randy that was quickly becoming an unfair fight, one of his men grabbed me from behind. I stomped on his foot, kicked back into his shin, and elbowed him in the ribs twice to make him let me go, and just as he did, Randy took the opportunity to shove me into a tree and stab me in the shoulder with his knife. 

It didn’t hurt me . . . Dean was feeling that if Gabriel had unblocked me blocking Dean. It was bleeding a lot though. I needed to make Randy get away from me, so I kneed him in the balls to drop him again, and used the time that bought me to pull the knife out . . . but that’s all I had time to do before they decided not to come at me one-on-one. 

Trish was immediately in my face with her own knife. I used Randy’s knife that’d been in my shoulder and got one good swipe in across the back of her hand to make make her drop her knife seconds before one of the men grabbed my left arm. Turning towards him, I sliced the wrist of the hand he grabbed me with to make him let me go and then immediately twirled the knife around to plunge it into the upper thigh of another guy who’d come up behind me. 

I left it sticking in him, and he fucked off to go sit next to the douchebag that had been shot in the arm, and that’s roughly when Randy hit me in the back of the head with what felt like a tree branch, and then two of them grabbed me and drug me a few feet away from where I’d been dropped. Between all of them, they got a zip tie around my wrists and pulled me to my feet, so they could use more zip ties to tie me to a tree. 

Trish was still nursing her hand. I thought when she walked up, she was going to punch me, but instead she decided to start carving something into my forehead. _Come on, Gabriel. Where are you? You know I never pray to you, but this is pretty serious. I’m tied to a tree, so I’m not in a good position to get my angel blade, and even if I could reach it, they’ve all got guns. The ones still standing are terrible shots, but I’m not sure if one of them will be able to shoot me before I can do anything with my blade. I’m supposed to be Indiana Jones, not the guy with a sword, he shoots._

“Let’s see what Dean thinks about you after he gets a load of this . . . won’t be hopping into his bed again,” Trish said stepping back. _And you think you will if you disfigure me? That makes no sense . . . I don’t get it._

“Don’t she look pretty now?” Randy said coming up to see her handiwork, as blood dripped down into my eyes. 

“Couldn’t tell you . . . can’t really see it, I’ll let you know later.” _You need to find a way to get your angel blade. It is the only way out of this . . . kill or maim Randy, and the rest will stop. You’re responsible for Dean’s life and your kid’s life. This isn’t just about you anymore._

I was only half paying attention to Randy when he looked down at me and said, “Says ‘Witch’,” while they laughed about it. “What is it we do with witches again? Burn ‘em is it?” _Oh my God these are the biggest idiots I’ve ever met . . . What’s left of the human race is seriously screwed if they’re a part of it. Stop laughing. It’s not funny. You’re senses of humor suck._

“If that’s what you think, then it looks like you learned as much in our lore classes as you did in our target and sparring classes, you fucking moron.” He ignored me, and he and his friends started grabbing pine needles and leaves and twigs to put at my feet. _That won’t work . . . They’ll figure that out soon enough. You don’t know that they will stop at this. Get your blade now._

Despite the fact that I was tied to a tree, and they were trying to set me on fire, I wasn’t in any immediate danger, so I had some time to play with here. I discreetly set about trying to get my angel blade, so I could cut the zip ties before Randy realized they couldn’t use any of the things they were planning on using as kindling. _You sure as shit don’t start a fire with wet leaves and twigs that have been covered in snow for months . . . Don’t say that. Why give them tips?_

“Your two friends aren’t looking all that great . . . and there are more of you littered around these woods that have gunshots to their knees . . . you guys need to get them all to the doctor . . . especially the guy with the knife wound, or he won’t make it. Maybe you should give this up for the night and get him some help,” I said after giving them about 5 minutes to stop this idiocy. If they didn’t, I was going to have to chance an obvious move to reach my blade, and as soon as I had it, they were dead if they didn’t shoot me first. Killing somebody to protect you or someone else isn’t the same as dealing with them after they’ve killed somebody else. One is self-defense or defense of others, and the other is revenge or justice. That’s why wanting me to watch Adam die was stupid and something I never would’ve let happen if Randy hadn’t taken me up on my offer. I simply would have shot him in the head if he’d kept up with it. I was a faster shot than any of them. The longer this went on, the more I thought maybe that’s what I should’ve done, and I was an idiot for not doing it.

That’s when Randy turned around and stabbed me in the shoulder before he pulled it back and stabbed me a few more times in the chest. _What the fuck? Talk about unexpected. Must’ve figured out the kindling wouldn’t work._ One of those stabs might’ve been pretty freaking close to my heart. _Fuck. Gabriel, tell Dean I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting that._

I looked down, and I was pumping blood out of a lot of holes now . . . I hoped Dean was okay. I was struggling to breath . . . Randy had gotten my lung . . . my wounds were healing, but Gabriel was healing the lung and deep tissue damage and leaving the surface wounds instead of healing me all the way. Maybe I should play dead, so it looks like they did the job, and then Gabriel could heal the rest? That’s when Randy decided to go overboard on the stabbing, because I hadn’t died yet . . . his stabs were getting a little too low for my liking, so pretending to die became a real problem for me. I couldn’t think about anything other than how I didn’t want him to stab my baby and trying to stay alive for that child in between the sneaky healing that Gabriel was doing. Bleed a lot, breath a little, heal, bleed a little, breath a lot, bleed a lot, breath a little. My poor body was confused. 

I missed the war cry out in the woods that happened roughly when I kneed Randy in the balls again to get enough space between his body and mine that I could contort myself around the tree to try and reach my angel blade. I got my fingertips on it and pulled it up a little, so I could cut my zip ties using the top part of the blade just sticking out of the sheath on my thigh. It wasn’t easy, and I was scared they were going to shoot me or punch me or stab me in the stomach, because it was really exposed in that position, or that I would fall and land on it, but I did it faster than any of them were expecting and promptly fell to my hands and knees as soon as I was unbound. Randy was still doubled over from when I kneed him in the groin, but he started stabbing me down through the back of my shoulders and got two in before I jammed my blade up into his stomach, and that made him stumble back a couple of steps. 

That’s when Abbey and Cameron came out of nowhere and cut the arms off two of the men who would’ve shot me in the next couple of seconds, and then they took the heads off the other guy and Trish, who’d been looking on in horror at the armless men pumping blood all over them. Cameron went to kill the two men who’d stayed to be spectators while Abbey cut the heads off the two men with missing arms, and Randy turned to look at the pain filled cries of what was left of his team but was in too much shock to do anything before Abbey came up and kissed him. She sucked what was left of his life right out of him, and he crumpled down onto the ground. 

“What the fuck just happened?” I asked whoozily while they pulled Randy’s knife out of my back and helped me lay down on my side. 

Abbey looked down at me and said, “We finished off the rest that were out in the woods . . . we’ll take you to the doctor now, and I will come with you to the next place you go. Cameron will stay here to raise her child.” 

_Seriously . . . what the fuck just happened?_ “Are you really here, or am I imagining you?” 

They looked at each other, and Cameron said, “We thought the same thing at first. We were asleep, and then we were in the woods. You are not imagining us.” 

_What?_ “Okay . . . maybe you could explain to me how the hell it is you’re some kind of Amazon-succubus hybrids, and why you just helped me after I accused you of being cannibals, and how stupid I should feel for trying to teach you self-defense . . . and how you got stuck at that wendigo farm and where you got your swords, because I like them . . . I’m happy with my angel blade . . . it kills a lot more than just angels and demons, but your swords are pretty bad ass.” I closed my eyes and put my hand up to stop them from lifting me. I was still being healed a little at a time. I would be okay in another couple of minutes, hopefully.

“Amazons are fast at breeding,” Cameron said sitting next to me on the ground. 

Abbey kneeled next to her and added, “Our mothers were held by the demon Crowley . . . they were forced into breeding with other monsters . . . our father was an incubus . . . we weren’t allowed to kill him, so we couldn’t become members of our tribe, but we identify with our tribe more than we do the succubus half.” 

I started piecing things together and said, “Crowley sent you to the wendigo farm to try you out and see how effective you were? It’s why you looked so well fed and stayed alive there for so long . . . you were feeding on small amounts of energy from the men when they came to you? Cameron isn’t a full Amazon, so she’s carrying her child like a human would?” 

Cameron nodded. “We’d heard of Dean Winchester before that . . . he kills our kind. We were surviving there.” _So, that’s why they didn’t want to escape? It was still shitty of them to sell out the other women just because they were scared of Dean._ They weren’t a million miles away from what I’d thought . . . they were monsters, just not the type of monsters I thought they might be becoming. 

“Why are you letting me know what you are now, and how did Cas not know what you were?” I asked still not feeling any better . . . why wasn’t Gabriel healing Dean more than this? My lungs were okay, but I was still bleeding a lot. _Gabriel, is Dean okay? It’s over . . . I don’t know what’s happening . . . kind of confused._

“You let the werewolves live . . . you don’t kill all monsters, and maybe this is the reason your angel cannot see our true form,” Abbey answered before lifting up her shirt to show me a sigil that had been branded into her stomach . . . maybe it was similar to the one Sam said he’d used around Cas to keep Cas from reading his thoughts on his plans about destroying the world. It was possible, but I didn’t know why Crowley was using it unless Crowley was planning on using his monsters as pawns against the angels or thought Sam had angels working for him in his camp. He could’ve slipped them past the gates in Vegas as humans and unleashed them once they got inside. They were hybrids, so they probably had a lot more secret weapons at their disposal than I’d just seen.

“You two sure are good actresses . . . I just thought you were whiney and lazy . . . not that you were holding back on doing training, so I couldn’t see what you really were. No wonder you wanted to be put on security. It’s the perfect job for you . . . Why is one of you staying and one of you coming with me?” I asked Abbey. 

“We’ve decided that you will be our new leader. It is our job to protect and serve our leader, so I will come with you, and Cameron will stay here to raise her children with the others and train the women in your stead. It isn’t safe for you to come back here anymore.” 

_Yeah, no kidding, but I don’t need more bodyguards._ “Can I release you from service, or is that . . . I don’t know. Punishable by death or something,” I asked flippantly until I realized that’s exactly the way they would take it. _I should be okay now, but I’m not. I just got healed, forehead and all . . . I think there’s something wrong with the baby. Keep talking to them. Stay awake. You need to find a way to fix this._

“Okay . . . all right. No need for hara-kiri. I don’t like to be told what to do to be kept safe. Give me your opinions, and I’ll listen, but the decision is ultimately mine. I’m bringing the kids in the camp with us . . . I agree that Cameron’s child should be raised with other kids, so she should come with us too . . . I’m really sorry for giving you guys a hard time . . . your life has been just as shit as everyone else’s here even if it was sped up until you reached adulthood . . . believe it or not . . . I actually know what that feels like . . . having your life sped up like that . . . it feels real . . . like a full lifetime . . . what about your mothers . . . any thoughts on breaking them out?” 

They glanced at each other and shook their heads. Either their mothers were dead, or they didn’t think there was any hope of them being freed. I wouldn’t ask about the swords again. I wouldn’t ask how they’d been held for so long on that farm either . . . they and their mothers had suffered way too much, and they didn’t need to be reminded of it . . . just because they were monsters didn’t mean they didn’t have feelings, and even if they didn’t feel bad about it . . . their kind hated being dominated by men . . . feeding off of those men . . . even in small amounts was the only way they’d had to fight back and survive . . . I figured they must’ve had some kind of sigil or ward on them somewhere that de-powered them otherwise those men would’ve been dead long before we got there based on what just happened to Randy . . . they probably got rid of whatever had bound them as soon as we got them out of the camp. 

“Why didn’t you just admit you were the two who screamed in that basement,” I asked, and apparently they decided they were done waiting for me to heal, because Abbey picked me up. _For fuck’s sake_ . . . I already knew they were both a good 6 inches taller than me . . . but apparently they were much stronger than someone their size should be, because it was no trouble for her to pick me up at all . . . _How the hell did I miss that?_

“It was a test . . . we wanted to see if you were strong enough to keep your word for as long as it took to get the truth . . . the women are still doing extra chores . . . it confirmed we were correct in wanting to pledge our loyalty to you after you destroyed that house with those men in it,” Cameron answered. 

“So, you were countering my test with a test, and me being a bitch made you like me more? Wait . . . don’t forget my gun” I said looking over Abbey’s shoulder and pointing in the direction of the last place I’d seen it, so Cameron knew where to go get it. It took her a few minutes, but she eventually came back over and handed it to me. I didn’t have a chance to ask them any more questions, because that’s when I saw a few people coming towards us . . . they were a bit foggy, so I didn’t know who they were. Could be friends or enemies. 

“Uh . . . defend yourselves if it looks like they’re out here to help those men in the woods.” _Gabriel? Abbey and Cameron saved me . . . they’re Amazon-succubus hybrids . . . I don’t know where they’re taking me. They’re carrying me somewhere . . . I think I’m going to pass out . . . uh, we need to get Cas out of this camp . . . and the kids . . . don’t know what happened to the council . . . I don’t know if Adam or my baby are alive or dead either . . . today was not a good day._


	7. Master Course

Sam watched Dean pacing back and forth along the length of the room. “Where the hell is he? And what the hell happened to Cas?” 

“Dean, it’s been 7 minutes. You need –“

Dean rounded on him menacingly and said, “I need to what? To get used to the idea that she’s gone? And what about my kid? Am I just supposed to get over it if they’re both gone? Is that what I’m supposed to do, Sam?” Okay, that’s not what he was going to say.

Sam got up and stood in Dean’s way as Dean resumed his pacing. “No . . . I don’t think you should get over it. I think you need to get used to the idea that Gabriel can’t come right now. You’re gonna have to do this one yourself.” Dean gave him a pissed off look that suggested he was a moron before he pushed past him to go check his weapons bag. “I’m serious, Dean. You’re gonna have to take a master class on your connection if you want to save them . . . if not . . . I guess that’s up to you.” The bait had been cast. Should be any second now. 

Dean turned to throw a knife at the wall in anger and yelled, “I don’t need a master class on my connection. I need to be there . . . master class on my connection . . . What the hell does that even mean?” Sam wasn’t used to seeing Dean like this, but he understood. Dean was days away, and had no time, so she might die without Dean being able to do anything about it. Dean always needed to be in control, and he had no control over anything right now. Dean was getting desperate, and Dean was at his most dangerous when he felt that way.

Luckily for Dean, Sam had been thinking about this connection crap, since he heard about it, so he had some theories. “Well, all right. The way I see it . . . Beth comes at things from an intellectual angle. It’s how she works, and it’s how she’s able to manipulate her connection to you and your connection to her, but you . . . you’ve always led with your emotions, Dean . . . it’s why –“ 

Sam was cut off when Dean went back to his bags to quadruple check his weapons and said, “I don’t know what the hell that’s supposed to mean . . . that just sounds . . . I’m not emotional . . . you’re emotional.” 

Sam hid his smile before he said, “Whatever. The point is . . . emotions or the way our emotions affect the way we think about something or the way we act . . . they’ll always be stronger –“ 

Dean turned around and gave him a look, like he was remembering something, before he said mostly to himself, “Subjective is a more powerful weapon than objective.” Yeah, that’s basically what Sam was saying. He was more than a little surprised Dean would phrase it like that, but he nodded. Dean looked like he was coming around to what Sam was saying and calming down a little, because he came over to sit next to him when Sam sat on the couch. 

“So, you think I can unblock her . . . what about –“ 

“I think you don’t need the angels to heal her. If she can tap into her soul, and it gives her this . . . power boost or whatever . . . Maybe you can too and use your connection to heal her.“ 

Dean looked like he was thinking about it, but wasn’t quite willing to accept it yet and said, “You actually think that’s possible, I mean –“ 

“I don’t know . . . Beth probably should’ve died before I got there when the two of you were with Alistair . . . I talked to Cas while I was helping him off the wall, and he didn’t know how she was still alive, let alone crawling all over the warehouse floor while Alistair was busy with you . . . and I know you don’t want to hear it, but in that hotel . . . she shouldn’t have lived as long as she did with what I was doing to her . . . I didn’t think she’d make it past that last round of questioning, but she was still breathing, and I had to come up with . . . anyway . . . she’s not as hard to kill as you think, and maybe that’s why.” 

Dean didn’t even flinch when Sam said that about the bathtub. Dean looked like he was trying to figure out a way to do what Beth did instead of dwelling on Sam’s part in it. “How does she –“ Sam started to ask. 

“She focuses on the thing that hurts the worst and won’t let herself feel anything but that until she can make it go numb, and then she focuses on how it’s numb until she can let it go. She never said anything about healing herself . . . Maybe she doesn’t know that she can . . . Souls are just energy. And energy can change matter. So it’s soul over matter, not mind over matter.” Dean had completely stopped talking to Sam by that point and continued rambling to himself, “I have to go to my limbo, focus on healing her by shifting the equilibrium between our connected systems, so I can take more of what happens to her onto me. It’ll take whatever happens to her away from her, so she’ll heal, and it’ll heal on me once it’s healed on her . . . the more I heal, the more she’ll heal, the more she heals, the more I’ll heal . . . but I still need to get past her blocking -” 

Sam scoffed at that and drew Dean’s attention away from what he was thinking. “Nothing . . . it’s just I never thought I’d hear you ever say souls are just energy and energy changes matter, like you knew what that meant or talk about shifting equilibriums . . . I think you’ve been spending too much time with a scientist.” 

Dean looked annoyed and said, “I’ll give you a lesson on thermodynamics sometime, law professor,” before he got up and started heading out of the room. Did Dean just do that thing Sam always hated when he was in college? That thing where scientists think they’re better than law students or other liberal arts majors, because they think their degrees are the hard ones? Never thought he’d hear Dean say something like that, but he kind of liked that Dean had. It was good that Dean had someone that talked to him about things like thermodynamics, because Dean was smart enough to understand things like that without anyone needing to dumb it down for him. Most people tended to just glance over things they didn’t think Dean would understand or over explained them to him. He did it sometimes. Dean played up to it. It was one of Dean’s greatest weapons. It made people, demons, monsters, and angels underestimate Dean on a pretty regular basis, because Dean was really smart.

“Where are you going?” Sam asked getting up to follow him. 

“Need somewhere quiet. I’m going to my room.” _Not on your own. We have no idea how this is going to work._

Dean didn’t even get as far as his room before he landed on his knees and had blood pouring down from his temple. “That was fast,” Sam said trying to help Dean get up. 

“Yeah, well I’m pissed off . . . pretty strong emotion . . . and I’m even more pissed off now,” Dean answered while touching the side of his head and looking at the blood on his fingers. 

“At least we know she’s still –“ Sam didn’t get finish that, because the next second, Dean was knocked out cold and landed face first on the ground, and that’s the way Dean would have to stay, because Sam couldn’t get him up by himself after what Beth did to his ankels and knees . . . could barely walk using a cane. He looked at Dean sprawled out on the ground and decided he should try.

He bent down the best that he could and rolled Dean over, so he could pick him up by the back of his collar and drag him the rest of the way into his room. He tried not to think about the last time he’d done this to Dean. It was for a whole other reason, one he remembered clearly. He couldn’t believe what he’d been willing to do to Dean just to get back at him for letting Beth kill Ruby or for Dean listening to Beth or maybe even for Dean having something with Beth that Sam hadn’t understood at the time. Heck, Dean hadn’t even really understood it back then. 

When he got Dean to his room, Sam wasn’t sure how to get Dean up on the bed. Maybe Beth’s idea for a pulley system being installed throughout the bunker wasn’t a bad one. She’d suggested it after one of the times Sam fell when Gabriel wasn’t around, because she couldn’t get him up on her own, but then she’d turned it into a joke and said then she could have him flying around here like Peter Pan on stage, and he worked a bit harder to help her get him up, because he thought that was actually something she might try in his sleep sometime. He chuckled at the thought of Dean flying around the bunker. Maybe they should install a pulley system anyway. Cas would be up for setting Dean up like that. 

Sam’s smile dropped, and his brow furrowed when he looked more closely at Dean. He found a wall nearby to help him slide down to the floor before he scooted closer to his brother and put his hand over Dean’s chest. When he pulled his fingers back, there was blood on them, so he pulled the collar of Dean’s t-shirt down and had a look. _I can’t believe this is real. Seeing it is completely different than hearing about it._ It looked like Beth had been stabbed. 

“Hey, Dean . . . I didn’t think this was what you were going to do. Thought you’d still be awake, so I could help talk you through it . . . I don’t know if you can hear me . . . but, uh . . . whatever you’re doing or not doing . . . you’d better hurry up, cuz I don’t know how much worse it’s gonna get . . . you won’t be any good to her if you die, so don’t,” Sam quickly said while grabbing one of Beth’s shirts that was on the end of the bed, so he could use it to put pressure over the wound. _Where’s Beth’s first aid kit?_

Sam knew that Gabriel gave her a new one when they got here. When he finally spotted it, he scooted himself over to it, so he could find what he needed. Maybe Dean was healing himself, or maybe he wasn’t. Sam needed to be prepared for whatever happened, so he could take care of it if Dean couldn’t. He could start by stitching up that hole in Dean’s shoulder. Better yet, he’d use Celox to stop the bleeding. He’d seen Beth use this stuff on Adam a couple of times, and he’d always wanted to give it a try.

He’d just gotten the stab wound taken care of when he glanced at Dean and saw what looked like someone slowly carving something into his forehead. _Witch?_ Was that because Dean was healing Beth, and they thought she was actually a witch, or because Beth could be a little witch sometimes? _She can be, but this is because she let me live. They’re both suffering because of me._

It led to thoughts of what he’d done to Dean at the Luxor. _How can Dean stand to look at me? I can’t look at me after that. No matter what I do, I can’t get the sight of Cas helping Dean off the wall out of my head._ The nightmares of it were the worst. Dean usually died, and then in the dream he realized what he’d done, but it was too late, or Dean didn’t die and said things, like how much better his life would’ve been without Sam or said how much he hated him, and had always hated him. _She should’ve killed me._

If she had then Dean wouldn’t be laying here bleeding while his human voodoo doll was being attacked in a different state. “You’d better hope Cas or Gabriel can heal that, Dean, cuz I am not going around with a brother and whatever Beth is with matching forehead tattoos that say ‘Witch’,” Sam muttered while he checked on Dean’s shoulder wound. _That stuff works great._

Maybe 5 minutes later, things started to get out of control. Blood started pouring out of another hole in Dean’s chest. Then a few more opened up from invisible blades, and Dean started struggling to breath. “Oh, God, uh . . . “ Sam looked through Beth’s bag . . . he could stop the bleeding from the ones that weren’t direct hits to the lung, but he needed to do something different with the lung punctures to equalize the pressure in Dean’s chest . . . She had everything he needed to do it, but he didn’t think he had time. “Dean, come on, man . . . you need to –“ He was cut off when Dean’s breathing steadied out. _Is he actually doing it?_

After that, Sam’s breath caught in his throat as a multitude of wounds started opening up all over Dean’s chest one right after the other. Whoever was doing this was going on a stabbing frenzy. Dean couldn’t breathe again for a few seconds until he could, and he couldn’t, and then he could. It kept happening over and over again, but Dean was getting faster at it. A geyser of blood shot out of Dean’s chest a couple of times right over his heart and aorta, but they stopped almost as fast as they started. Dean was on his own. There’s no way Sam could keep up. 

_How the hell did Beth let this happen? She can take on monsters and demons and me at my worst, but not a few humans . . . she wasn’t expecting this . . . Oh, God, what if they start stabbing her baby? Dean can’t heal that. I might not have a chance to be an uncle. Dean won’t get to be a Dad. Where are Adam and Cas?_ Sam may not necessarily like Adam, but he knew without a doubt that there was no way that Adam would let this happen to her if he was around. Adam was probably detained the same way Cas had been or was dead. Maybe they both were. What if she and Dean died now? He’d be on his own. He was just starting to get his brother back. 

Today had been a good start in the right direction. He’d finally gotten Dean’s thoughts on everything, and now he knew where he stood with his brother. It’d cleared the air. Watching movies with Dean all day had been great. He hadn’t been able to do something like that with Dean in so long that he’d forgotten what it was like. And he didn’t mind Beth. Maybe he even liked her a little despite his best efforts. They had an official book club going that he actually looked forward to . . . reading and discussing things, like the metaphors or symbolism in a book, was refreshing and helped clear his mind, and of course annoying her was fun. He never used to be able to get a rise out of her. He didn’t know if it was because of how much of her soul had been replaced since the last time he saw her or if it was her being pregnant, but she let him know when she was annoyed with him now, and she gave as good as she got. Maybe it felt like they were all starting to become a family. It might be 3 years too late, but it was a start, and he didn’t want it to be taken from him now.

Sam was interrupted from his thoughts when Dean sat up and said, “It’s over . . . turns out the two crazies from the wendigo farm are Amazon-succubus hybrids. They came in and slaughtered the rest of ‘em,” before he hissed and looked down at his chest. 

It was still cut up and bleeding, but it probably wasn’t life threatening anymore except for the blood that he’d already lost. “How –“ 

Dean cut off Sam’s question. “She called in the calvary without meaning to do it . . . It’s like I could hear what she was thinking, like I normally can, but louder, like she was talking . . . I don’t know what happened to Adam, but it must’ve been bad, cuz she didn’t think he was gonna make it . . . not sure about Cas either . . . might as well be a weak human if they kept him in the camp using angel wards.” That’s when there was a loud knock on the door, and Dean struggled to get up while Sam did the same. “I’ve gotta feeling that’s our ride out of here,” Dean grunted before Sam put Dean’s arm around his shoulder and helped him walk to the front door.


	8. Plan of Action

Dean swung the door open and immediately said, “You took your sweet ass time getting here. Could’ve used your help.” 

“So all the little birdies in my ear kept saying.” _I knew you were listening._

“You’re just lucky Sam figured it out, and it makes you a shitty Dad. How could you hang her out to dry like that?” _I know you know how bad it was. I heard her praying to you._

“Were you or were you not worried about what would happen if one of my brothers took her? You should be able to get around them severing your connection by doing the same thing . . . I’ve gotta say the healing thing was a surprise . . . maybe I let it go on longer than intended, so I could see what you can do. Not bad, Dean.” Gabriel snapped his fingers and Dean was healed and standing with Sam and Gabriel in the woods outside the wall of the camp. 

“Nice wall . . . how long did all that take,” Sam said admiring it. Dean looked up at it proudly until he realized how big of a bitch it was going to be to get in there and get Cas. 

“Finished it just after we got back from Vegas . . . There’s a trench on the other side of the wall too that’s full of cement, so nothin’ can tunnel under . . . We’ve got 9 outposts that all have walls like this, but they’re not as big . . . bout half the length of this one, so they went up faster,” Dean answered, as he walked with Sam and Gabriel towards where he knew Beth was. 

“How’d you find this place?” Sam asked while he had a look around at the trees. 

“Dad showed it to me when you were away at college. It’s where I brought Beth after I tried to kill Ruby, and it’s where Beth came after she got shot . . . might be where I spent those 6 weeks.” Sam glanced at Dean and looked around at the place with a fresh pair of eyes, like he was filling in some blanks in his history of Dean. 

Dean picked up his pace when he saw Abbey carrying Beth towards them. Beth looked really pale. “Gabriel . . . I thought –“ 

“Yeah, she’s healed the same as you are. She does have one thing you don’t and couldn’t heal . . . too much blood loss to vital areas, but I’ll take care of it now,” Gabriel said before he touched her forehead. Beth woke up and gave Dean that dozy smile she had in the mornings until she remembered what happened, and then she reached for him, so he took her from Abbey. 

Dean didn’t know what Sam was talking about. He thought she should be gaining more weight than she was. The books he had Cas find him said 5-10 pounds was normal, and she was at maybe 5 pounds, so a few more pounds wouldn’t hurt. She had two main vices at the moment. One was milk, which Cas was always getting for her, and the other was lasagna. She almost never got the second unless Gabriel was at the bunker and made it appear out of thin air. He’d ask Gabriel to get him stuff to make her lasagna when they got back. He wanted to make it for her this time. 

Dean didn’t know why he was thinking about all that. Maybe it’s because of what she’d just been through. He wanted to let her know he’d take care of her in whatever way she needed even if it was by making sure she got whatever food her cravings wanted. When he got her home, he’d give her one of his shirts and make sure she had lasagna. He almost hadn’t been able to do anything like that for her again. If Sam hadn’t helped him figure out how to get past her blocking him, then he wouldn’t have.

Maybe he should get her out of here while he went to get Cas and Adam. He was about to suggest that Gabriel take her back to the bunker, but she whispered, “Don’t even think about it. I don’t know what happened to Cas, but they shot Adam 3 times. The third time they shot him in the chest. I don’t know where the council is, but I don’t think they were in on it . . . The kids can’t stay here. They were intentionally shooting at them. I have to do this.” 

Dean was about to overrule her, but she did something she rarely did, and she did it without meaning to do it, which was probably why her puppy dog eyes worked. He sighed while he put her down and said, “All right . . . so, we’ve got Abbey, Cameron, and the four of us . . . You, Cameron, Gabriel and Sam can’t exactly do much inside those walls unless –“ 

He was cut off when someone out in the woods said, “Was thinking we might be able to help with that.”

Beth turned with a smile and said, “Hey, Tom . . . did you –“ 

Tom nodded. “Yeah, our guards heard the shooting, so a few of us came out to investigate since we didn’t hear anything over the radio from Chuck . . . from the smell of things around here, I’m guessing the ones that did that to you didn’t make it.” 

Beth looked behind her in the woods where it’d gone down and slowly shook her head before she looked back at Tom and said, “No . . . They didn’t . . . Abbey and Cameron took care of the ones out here, but the ones on the wall are in on it too.” That reminded Dean. He needed to make sure the kids outside the wall didn’t do anything stupid, so he asked Gabriel if he knew where they were, and if he could go check on them. 

Gabriel said they were outside the front gate and that he’d keep them out of trouble before he disappeared. Rick, who was Adrien’s dad, and Juan, Franklin, and James came out of the trees after Gabriel left, and James said, “They did this while the kids were still out here?” 

Beth took a guilty breath and nodded. “Yeah, it was after you guys took the younger kids back, but the teens were still out here with Adam, Cas, and me . . . a few of the teens hung back thinking they could help . . . They were shooting at the kids that did. Randy caught Andrea and put a knife to her throat. I had to get rid of my gun, so he wouldn’t hurt her . . . Then I had to negotiate a way out for Ty, and -“ Franklin asked why they’d do something like this while he pointed to Beth’s blood soaked coat. 

“It’s because she let me live . . . right, Beth?” _Come on, Sam. This is not the time to be pissing off our only allies._

Beth looked down and shook her head slightly before she said, “Yes and no. It’s why they were trying to kill Adam, but for the ones out here, it was mostly because I rub some people the wrong way.” 

Juan wanted Beth to go back to the beginning, because it wasn’t making sense to him, and he wanted to know who Sam was. If they wanted to back out because of Sam, it was better if they did it now. Didn’t mean Dean couldn’t play up to the way they liked Beth to try and keep them on side. “They were supposed to make her watch Adam die before they killed her, because she let Sam live, but Beth’s had run-ins before with the ones out here in the woods. She offered to let them have a chance against her . . . said that Randy could have the first hit if he let Ty and Adam go, and he couldn’t pass it up. She was doing all right even after the others joined in . . . until Randy hit her in the back of the head with a branch and tied her to a tree . . . they carved ‘witch’ into her forehead and were planning on trying to burn her at the stake until Randy went Psycho on her. God listens to her . . . It doesn’t work all the time, just sometimes, and we don’t know how or why yet, but she thought, ‘God, what’s left of the human race is screwed if these are the kind of people that are left,’ and God brought the two Amazons in to deal with it . . . that about right?” 

Beth nodded, like she wasn’t quite sure how he knew all that and looked back over at Juan to add, “And to answer your question about Sam . . . he’s –“ 

Sam cut her off and said, “Let me do it, Beth . . . I’m the one that did this to you and your families. I let the Croatoan virus loose. I was runnin’ Vegas . . . I’m the one she took down in the Luxor.”

Franklin, James, and Juan all looked at Tom and Rick to see if that was true. They’d been out saving the kids on the convoys and shutting down the trading posts, so they hadn’t been involved in what happened inside Vegas. Tom took a good look at Sam before he looked at the other three and said, “Yeah, it’s him . . . doesn’t smell like a demon anymore, and he doesn’t look the same without the black eyes or sound like him, but it’s him.” 

James looked turned to Dean. “He’s your brother?” 

Dean nodded before Franklin said, “And she’s your Missus?” Dean didn’t respond to that one. He didn’t know what the hell to call Beth, and it was obvious they thought Beth gave Sam a free pass because of him, and that might become a problem. 

Rick was a lifesaver and came out with a pretty good pitch. “Should’ve seen what he did to Dean. If my wife’s brother did something like that to her . . . It wouldn’t have mattered if he was my wife’s brother or not, I would’ve killed him . . . think anyone would have. She had a different reason for keeping him alive . . . I heard what she said to him after she smashed that tablet. Had a lot of time to think about it since. Making him suffer the way he is with a shot at redemption is the only way this could go, because God help us all if he goes to Hell and crawls back out worse than he was.” 

Beth bit her bottom lip and nodded at Rick to let him know that’s why she’d done it before Tom said, “I’m still in because of Beth and Dean . . . They’re the only reason any of us got out of there without being hauled off with whatever demon decided to wear us out of that city when the rest of ‘em took off . . . only reason any of those kids or the people in this camp or the outposts are alive . . . but if any of you want out . . . say it now, and I’ll let you go back to the camp . . . and Dean had better hold onto this one, cuz there’s quite a few at my camp that’d take his place in a heartbeat . . . might consider it myself.” 

Beth took a half step behind Dean before Rick said, “Might be my type too if she could speak French . . . Adrien’s Mom was French. My grandparents were French . . . Always had a thing for the language . . . oh wait . . . Beth can speak it, cant’ she . . . It’s how she met my boy . . . might start calling her St. Jude, the Patron Saint of Lost Causes if she stays with Dean.” 

Beth sighed and leaned her head against Dean’s back before she looked around him again when Franklin said, “One hell of a woman . . . looks even better now that she’s filling out more . . . you need help raising your kid, let me know.” 

Juan grinned and said something in Spanish to himself, but before he could open his mouth to say something else in English, Beth responded in Spanish, and Juan shook his head, so she said it again in English. “You take that back . . . that’s definitely not how I’m a miracle worker.”

Juan laughed and nudged Rick. “Knows Spanish too . . . looks like you’re gonna have a fight on your hands.” 

James looked at Beth and tilted his head away from the others indicating she should follow him, so she did, and as soon as her back was turned, the other 4 dropped their grins and looked menacingly at Sam. Dean was expecting that. What they’d just done was let Beth know they didn’t hold anything against her for what she did with Sam, but they were definitely not on Sam’s side, and Dean got that. 

He still loved Sam. He always would, but Dean had nightmares most nights about Julie dying in front of him or one of the kids dying in his arms at the trading posts, and every time he had them and woke up next to Beth, he held her a little tighter and tried to remind himself that she would make sure that justice was served, so he wouldn’t let them all down again by letting Sam off the hook to get his brother back. Sometimes he still thought that’s what Julie was thanking him for just before Sam . . . maybe Julie thought Sam would get what was coming to him, so every time Dean saw Sam struggling with a cane or falling over with his crutches or looking like he was in pain when he walked, he reminded himself of what happened to Julie and helped pick Sam up, but he wouldn’t ask for any of it to be healed to make things easier for Sam.

When James came back over, Tom said, “So we need to go in and get your other brother and Cas? Angel wards are up?” _Have to be otherwise Cas wouldn’t still be in there._

“Yeah, they probably look a lot like the ones in Vegas . . . He’ll be as weak as a human if he’s still alive . . . don’t know if Adam’s still alive either . . . gunshot wound to the leg and chest . . . wasn’t looking good the last time Beth saw him. I want their bodies if they’re dead.” 

Dean paused when James shook his head and said, “I just saw both of them earlier tonight making sure the kids had a good time out on the lake . . . my Jazz is in there . . . I want her out.” 

Then Rick looked at Dean and said, “Were they really shooting at the teenagers out here?” _You’re right to be worried about Adrien. I’m worried about Ben. There’s no way those two aren’t in there planning something right now that could get them both killed if the hit squad was willing to take shots at the teens._

Dean took a long slow breath before he nodded. “Yeah, they were taking shots at them the same way they were Adam, and the kids were unarmed as far as I know . . . I know both of your kids well enough to know they are probably up to something in there, so you need to get to them before they do it . . . If you find them, they’ll help you find Ben, and he’ll help you get the rest of the kids together, so you can get them all out. We’re not leaving any of the kids here. We don’t know where the council is either . . . if they’re alive, we need to get them out too . . . I don’t know who’s onside and who isn’t, but if they’re adults, and they’re not in the cabins, assume they were in on it. I have the feeling everyone else is on lockdown. Me and Sam are gonna go to the front gates . . . figure having a chance to take a crack at the guy that ruined their lives and killed the world will get their attention.” 

Tom snorted. “You’re using your brother as bait?” 

Dean shrugged and said, “Wouldn’t be the first time . . . no guns and make sure you have Beth’s back.” 

Tom gave Dean a look that said he thought Dean was crazy. “You’re not lettin’ her go in there after what just happened, are you? You’re new angel friend is the only reason she didn’t lose –“ 

“You could try and say that to her, but she’ll just tell you that it all worked out in the end . . . besides . . . she’s already over.” 

Tom looked back to where Beth had been standing when she’d been talking to James, and she was gone. “How –“ 

Dean grinned and said, “She probably took Juan’s bag cuz of whatever he said in Spanish and used whatever he had in it to get up that wall with the Amazon she brought with her.” Dean chuckled at Juan’s reaction when Juan realized his bag was gone. Then Dean had to get serious as he gave his final instructions. “Go in where Beth did on the North wall. She’s clearing a path for you. Once you get to the ground, head west until you get to an old hunter’s shack . . . maybe 750 yards away from the main cabin . . . there’s a group of trees around it with a zip line attached to the cabin . . . she’ll probably be waiting for you 5 there . . . If the ones on the wall see you, they’ll go for silver rounds if they think you’re helping her.” 

After the werewolves were gone, Dean turned to Sam and asked if he was up for this. It looked like Sam’s ankles were giving him some serious problems. He should’ve made Sam grab his crutches before they left. They helped support Sam’s weight better than Sam’s legs and that cane did. Sam said he was fine and started hobbling with Dean through the trees, so they could make their way around to the front of the camp. 

Before they got there, Dean said, “Let me talk to the kids. I need –“ 

“They need to hear it from me. If you and Beth are the ones that tell everyone here who I am, they’ll think you’re trying to protect me. They need to hear that it was me from me, and once we talk to the kids, you need to let me talk to the ones inside the camp without standing in front of me like you did with the werewolves. The only reason that didn’t make them back out was because Beth looked all cute and uncomfortable standing behind you, so it took their attention off of you doing it for me until you stopped doing it . . . still don’t know how she can go from being a killer to looking so . . . cuddly the way she does sometimes.” 

Dean snorted. Beth cuddly. She’d love that one, and hearing Sam say that made Sam sound like a little girl. Dean hadn’t realized he was blocking Sam from Tom and the others. Maybe he was. Just a natural reaction to anything that was a threat to Sam, and as far as he was concerned, his Sammy was finally starting to make a come back after today.


	9. Silent Assault on Wisconsin

I just decided to go. The werewolves would all probably waste more time trying to convince me to stay there. It was time I didn’t think that Adam or Cas had, so I had to get the ball rolling and make the first step. Dean saw me go, so he was obviously okay with it, or he would have tried to stop me. I was the only one out of all of them that saw what kind of shape Adam was in when he was brought in here. 

I had to know if he was still alive. I had to help him if he was. I had to get the angel wards down if I was going to get Cas out of there, and that wouldn’t be easy with 2 miles of wall to search . . . unless they just put them up on whatever building he landed in, but I didn’t think they would’ve had time to figure out which building he was in before he got out if that was the case. One of the ones out in the woods must’ve radioed in when Cas disappeared with Jenna and told them he was on his way into the camp . . . If that’s what happened, maybe they’d thought that when the first shots rang out, we’d have Cas take us into the camp. It could’ve been so much worse if all three of us had gotten stuck in there, thinking we were safe, only to find we weren’t. 

These people were survivors, so they were tough, and they were organized with their plans to kill me, but they weren’t necessarily prepared for us to get in here. The walls were a deterrent, and they offered some protection, but it was the people that manned them and the people that gave orders to the people who manned them that made the difference between the walls being something that could just be gotten around if the timing was right or something that nothing would ever be able to get around. 

It took me and Abbey 2 minutes of putting the makeshift harness together, 90 seconds for her to climb up the wall, using her Amazon blade in the mortar between the blocks and some stuff we found in Juan’s bag to put onto her shoes to give her more grip, 10 seconds for me to step into the harness, and 15 seconds for her to pull me up the wall. Nothing should have been able to get inside these walls in less than 4 minutes. This place was screwed without proper leadership.

Abbey and I worked our way along the top of the wall towards one of the towers in the middle. “Abbey, I need you to stay close . . . I know you’ve probably had training, but you need to stand back and watch how I deal with this. Don’t kill anybody else.” I kept an eye out for any sigils I needed to cross out as we went, but didn’t find any. Either they were on the wall down along the ground, or they were in the watchtowers, or they were in a mixture of all 3 places, and I just hadn’t come across any up here yet. 

We were maybe 250 feet from the nearest watchtower when two people came out to do their rounds. I straightened my gate, so it looked like I belonged up there and kept my gun partially hidden in my sleeve down by my side. They couldn’t see who I was from there. 

When we got close enough that they could finally see that it was me and went to pull their weapons, I raised my gun, aimed it at the first one. “I helped train the two of you . . . How do you think this will go down?” The one in front put his gun down, but the guy behind him didn’t, so I trained my gun on him. “The ones in the woods are all dead. You don’t have to join them.” I didn’t kill Randy or the others, and I wouldn’t have killed this guy, but he didn’t have to know that. 

As soon as he dropped his gun, Abbey and I searched them for weapons, put zip ties around their wrists and ankles, and then finished them off by putting duck tape we got from Juan’s bag across their mouths. Abbey and I left them there and moved on to do the same to the ones that were still in the watchtower. That was 4 down and the 2 to go. 

As soon as the 2 that had gone the other along the wall to do their rounds came back to the watch tower, we ambushed them and tied them up too. Abbey dragged the first two we tied up into the watchtower, so now all 6 were all hidden in there. I checked my watch. We had an hour until the next shift change. That wasn’t much time to get all of this done. 

Having tied them all up individually, we then decided to tie them up together in a group, back to back, to make it harder for them to get the zip ties and tape off their mouths. When we were done, I looked down at them and said, “There is a reason none of you made the cut to be guards when I was here . . . This was entirely too easy. When you’re up here, you’re responsible for everyone inside these walls. You have to be willing to die for the people in this camp, and yet you 4 rolled over the second you were threatened without even firing a shot, and you 2 got caught unprepared. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Someone will let you loose in about an hour.” 

We kept the weapons and threw their boots over the camp side of the wall. It was well below freezing outside the watchtower, so not having shoes should help deter them from working together to make it to the next watchtower and raise the alarm. We also took their radios. I scratched out the angel wards inside the tower at the top and the sigil I found inside the tower at the bottom of the steps leading into the camp. Maybe they were in all the watchtowers? Still wouldn’t be easy, because there were 23 of them left to search and 6 of them were along the front wall, where it looked like Dean was going to act as a distraction according to my Dean tracker. 

When Abbey and I got to the zip line, we weren’t waiting more than a minute before Tom and his team showed up. “Hi guys . . . so, I was thinking –“ 

Tom looked down at me and he cut me off to say, “First things first . . . Dean said I’m the one runnin’ things in here, so you do what I say, when I say it, and no more runnin’ off. Got it?”

_Oh, how sweet. He’d better not knock me out again._ “Dean didn’t tell you anything like that. He’s tried telling me what to do for years . . . I think he’s finally given up . . . thanks for caring though . . . might want to watch it or you’ll get a reputation as a big softie.” 

Tom sighed in frustration while Rick eyed Abbey and said, “Is she really a monster? Not like us . . . she was born that way and can’t turn it off.” Dean already told them she was, but they wanted to know who they were working with in here after they heard she and Cameron killed everyone out in the woods.

“She’s half-Amazon and half-succubus . . . but she thinks of herself as an Amazon. She’s a warrior that’s trained in hand-to-hand and has a wicked sword. And don’t forget. Wonder Woman is an Amazon.” Abbey asked who Wonder Woman was and wanted to know how to find her, because if she was on her own, then maybe she could join their new tribe and help us. 

The guys all laughed, and I thought what she’d said was really endearing. I didn’t know how she was supposed to age if she hadn’t had a chance to kill her father, but being held captive the way she had been her entire life had stunted her mental development. She may look like a young woman in her mid-twenties, but she was probably around the same mental age as a teenager. She and Cameron screaming to let those wendigo farmers know they were getting away was more understandable if she and Cameron both really thought Dean was the equivalent of their boogie man. The kids around here had thought the same thing about Dean for a long time and probably would’ve done the same thing. How could I have gotten it so wrong? I’d been so mean to them. I needed to find a way to make it up to them somehow even if they didn’t think I’d done anything wrong. 

“Do you know how to read?” 

She answered carefully, like she didn’t want to disappoint me. “Some, but my mother wasn’t able to teach me as much as she would have if I hadn’t been taken away from her when I was.” 

_Comic books are a good place to start._ “Wonder Woman is a comic book character. She isn’t real, but she’s she’s really famous. She’s a superhero. After we get out of here, I’ll find a way to get you some of her comics. Your reading level should be just fine for those . . . if it’s not, let me know, and I’ll teach you how to read . . . maybe she could be a role model for you.” 

Juan said something in Spanish about having a thing for Wonder Woman, so I said, “I wouldn’t get any ideas if I were you . . . she sucked the life out of Randy with a kiss using her succubus side.” 

I was going to leave it at that, but Abbey decided to voice her own opinion. “We are tired of men. We were branded to make us weaker and given to men in a farmhouse, and then all of them forced us to do things we did not want. It is why Cameron is pregnant.” They all looked at her a little differently, like she wasn’t just a monster, but a victim, until Abbey added, “And they made people eat other people until they turned into the worst monsters there are, wendigos, but Beth killed the monsters and killed all the men and burnt their house down, so Cameron and I follow her now.” 

Rick asked what a wendigo was, so I said, “They make you guys look like puppies. Have you ever seen the movie Predator?” I waited for him to nod. “They’re like the Predator without the guns, but they aren’t aliens. They used to be human. Think of the Donner party or that plane that crashed in the Andes with that rugby team . . . what’s the one thing they have in common?” They knew what I meant so I said, “That’s how you make a wendigo. Starve people and they’ll eat other people to survive, but it takes a long time to become one and with every person they eat, they become stronger, smarter, and faster . . . and once you’re a wendigo there is no going back. Crowley, the King of Hell, was making them in response to Sam’s monsters in Vegas. We know there are more farms out there. That’s how Cameron and Abbey were made, but we don’t know where they are.” 

Then, Tom asked me a question I was totally unprepared to answer. “Is that what you are?” 

_A wendigo? No, he's looking at Abbey._ “An Amazon? No. Look at the difference between Abbey and me. She’s a good 6 inches taller, blonde, and a hell of a lot stronger . . . I’m not a witch either in case you’re wondering . . . what happened in the woods wouldn’t have happened if I were.” 

“Be straight with us. Are you like us or everyone else here? I saw you in the Luxor, Beth . . . You’re eyes looked different, and you were fast . . . faster than any of us would’ve been even with the collars off. You cleared that room in less than 5 minutes . . . didn’t miss a mark . . . hell, you did what you did to Sam before he even hit the ground.” 

_Oh. Right. Someone didn’t keep all of their attention on the hall and just had to spy into the penthouse, did they?_ “I’m all human. I just may be a little less human than everybody else. It means I’m really in tune with myself without being aware that I’m in tune with myself, so I know how to power up using my soul without knowing that’s what I’m doing. I’m fractured somewhat. ” 

James asked me what I meant by that, so I said, “I was kidnapped by angels the day I was born. They tore out half of my soul . . . pretty much all the parts that give into the 7 deadly sins, and left me with –“ 

Rick finished my sentence for me. “The 4 virtues . . . that’s why you said that?” Rick really seemed to have listened to me that day. 

Franklin asked what I meant by powering up from my soul. I didn’t really know how to explain it. “There’s immense power in our souls. Mine’s growing back now, so I’m at about 80%. The more of my soul I have, the more power I can access. I don’t know how I do it. Cas seems to know, and he explained it to Dean, so Dean went in to confront Sam knowing that Sam would do the kinds of things he did to him, because he wanted to push the right buttons to get me like that.” 

Franklin asked Rick what Sam did to Dean. I didn’t really want to talk about it, so I pretended to dig through Juan’s bag before I handed it back to him as Rick whispered, “He crucified him on the wall and had his demons flay the skin off his upper arms, shoulders, and the right side of his chest. Don’t know what else they did, but I could see his bones sticking out in some places when I got in there.” _I should’ve just kept moving instead of waiting for them at the zip line. Werewolves are too inquisitive._

That’s when the calls started to come in on the radio from the different watchtowers and patrols around the camp saying that the coast was clear. My heart broke a little when I heard the person they were reporting to at the top. _Does he know what happened?_

I took a deep breath to calm myself, and when it was time for the watchtower we’d cleared to answer, I handed Abbey the radio and told her what to say as Janice, so they wouldn’t recognize my voice. It must’ve worked, because when Abbey was done, the checks carried on to the next watchtower. 

“I’m going to the clinic to see if that’s where Adam is. 1 person needs to go up this zip line and break into the second floor of the cabin. We need to see if that’s where they put the council and Cas. I don’t think they put them in quarantine . . . my guess is they put them in the food storage room. It’s probably the most secure place here. If the council is in there, wait until Dean makes his move, take them to the zip line, and from there take them to the hunter’s shack. Angel wards and sigils are on the top and bottom floors of the watchtowers. They all need to go, so we can get Cas out and Gabriel in . . . hit the West wall first before Dean and Sam get there . . . use discreet marks to break the wards along that wall, so nobody will notice at a glance and blend in with the guards. Don’t tie them up. Tie up all the others on the North, South, and East walls, and take their radios. Tom, you decide who goes where.” 

Finally, it looked like we were getting somewhere on our mission, because after that, Tom gave his orders. “Tripp and Mendez are on the watchtowers. Don’t let them see your collars when you’re on the West wall. Start there, split up, and work your way back around . . . no fatalities . . . zip ties and duct tape like in the watchtower they cleared. Devereaux, I take it you know where your son is. Have him help you get the other kids to that shack over there. Carlton, you’re on the main cabin looking for the council.” 

Franklin and Juan headed west, Rick took off to the southeast, and James started heading up the zip line. Apparently, Tom was coming with Abbey and me. When we got to one of the cabins at the back, Abbey and Tom took care of the armed guards on the door and tied them up, while I went in to see what they were guarding . . . 40 kids under the age of 13. They were all awake and all looked scared. I never wanted our camp to be a place that scared them. It was supposed to be a beacon of hope for them after everything they’d already endured. I told them to stay quiet, go to the hunter’s shack, stay hidden, and wait for Adrien and Ben to get there. The ones that were a little older helped the smaller kids put on their coats and shoes, while we kept watch. _These kids are all amazing. They deserve so much better._

We watched them head of into the night to make sure they got away okay as a couple of guards on patrol came around the corner of the cabin in front of us. Without warning, Abbey started walking up to them confidently, like she was supposed to be there, the way I had on top of the wall. Tom and I glanced at each other and decided to stay where we were to see what happened. The cabin we were standing in front of was supposed to have to 2 guards in front of it, so it helped with her charade if we stayed put for the time being. 

She disarmed both of them in almost no time at all when she got close enough to do it, and while they were preoccupied with her, Tom and I snuck around and approached them from the back to help her out before they could sound the alarm. After they were tied up, we locked them up next to the other guards we’d already put in the cabin at the back and took their radios before we moved onto the next cabin and cleared it the way we had the first one. 

Twenty minutes later, we made it to the clinic. It was crawling with security. I said, “We should be go in about 30 seconds,“ when my Dean tracker picked up that he was moving from the trees towards the camp gates. He must’ve been waiting for me to get to the clinic and knew we’d been standing outside of it for a solid minute trying to find an opening. 

About 30 seconds later, it came in over the radio that Dean and some guy were outside the gate, and the guards on the gate wanted Bobby to tell them what to do. “How do you two do that,” Tom whispered to himself as Bobby did a roll call of the watchtowers again. Abbey, Tom, Juan, and Franklin all chimed in instead of the people that were supposed to be doing their jobs, so we were all right, and it absolutely confirmed for me that Bobby was a part of this whole thing. One, he was checking security around the camp at the sight of Dean instead of letting him in here, and two, Stephen hadn’t answered back during either roll call, so the only member of the council that was out right now was Bobby.

More and more of the people left their posts around the clinic as people started to figure out who Sam was. We could hear them saying, “He’s here . . . the guy . . . he’s outside with Dean,” as they left. Pretty soon, it was a more manageable 5 to our 3, so we made our move and incapacitated them before tying them up. 

Abbey and Tom drug them to the cabin we’d been standing behind, so nobody would notice they were gone, and then Tom and Abbey maintained a post outside the door, while I went into the clinic by myself. I knocked on the door of the operating room, and Dr. Thomas yelled, “I already told you . . . it takes time . . . I’ll let you know when I’m done.” I didn’t know if she had any guards in there, so I couldn’t exactly give myself away. I tried the door handle. She’d locked it, so I picked the lock, but the door still wouldn’t budge. She must’ve barricaded the door. “I didn’t sign up to be the kind of doctor that saves someone just so they can be executed to prove a –“ she yelled almost frantically. _Executed?_

She had to be alone. I didn’t hear anyone else in there. “Did you sign up to be a mechanic that needs help from an engineer?” 

“Beth? Oh thank God,” she said pushing something away from the door. 

“Wait . . . how sterile –“ She opened the door, and pulled me inside before she shut it and pushed the upended desk from her office in front of it again, so it leaned perfectly against the door in such a way that nothing would get through it short of blowing it with explosives. She had a sturdy desk. I got it for her myself.

I wasn’t expecting to see what I saw when I got in there. It was the wrong way around. Adam was unconscious, but when I checked his pulse, he was alive even though he was pale. I looked at his chest, and there weren’t any holes in it even though his chest was caked in blood, but Cas . . . Cas wasn’t looking good at all. Someone had decided to use his angel blade on him, because he was bleeding, beaten, and had been stabbed repeatedly. “How did this happen?” 

Dr. Thomas looked kind of shaky. I guess not many doctors have worked on angels. “I don’t know. He came in here looking like that. He must’ve heard that Adam wouldn’t make it, because maybe 5 minutes after I started to work on Adam, he just appeared out of nowhere . . . he collapsed and reached up from the ground to touch Adam’s arm before he went out. I’ve been trying . . . I don’t know how to fix angels . . . I know I give him a hard time, because he’s my competition, but . . . I just . . . he’s done so much around here . . . I don’t understand it.“ 

I looked under Cas’s shirt at where she’d been trying to suture him and saw his grace. It was threatening to break free and weakly flickering at the same time, which was unusual. “Thank you for trying, Doctor Thomas. The wards on the walls are weakening him, and I don’t know where they learned them, but the other sigils they used are hurting him as much as his angel blade did, and this one . . . “ I paused while I looked around for a scalpel. _What the fuck have they done? Who taught them this?_

“I’ll get rid of it, Cas.” I made an incision around the sigil they’d burnt into his side and removed it. It was messy, and he was bleeding a lot from it, but that one had to go immediately. It was draining him of his grace. It was a slow and painful way for them to die. It’s why his grace was weakening. I didn’t teach them that. Maybe they found it in the Campbell family archives along with the scent masking recipe against werewolves, but I had no idea how the Campbells would know something like that. The only reason I knew what it did is because I read about it in Heaven’s archives. 

Dr. Thomas automatically went to bandage the wound I’d just made in his side. Her hands were shaking, and I grabbed one to get her attention. “He’ll heal on his own after we get him out of this camp. Go get Tom and Abbey. They’re standing just outside the front door. I need Abbey to carry Adam, and I need Tom to carry Cas . . . Tell them to go over the East wall . . . it’s the closest to where we are. All the wards should be down along it, so Cas should be able to get out that way. I need you to go to the hunter’s shack and tell the council to get the rest of the kids in this camp out of here too. I’ve got something else to do, and I need to know all the kids are gone before I do it.” 

I brushed Cas’s hair to the side, and she asked, “What are you going to do?” while she moved the desk away from the door again. 

“You’ll know it when you see it.” After she was gone, I teared up a little as I leaned down and gave Cas a hug. “Cas, I’m sorry I sent you in here, and I’m sorry I took so long to find you. I’m going to make sure you get out of here . . . Hold on to what’s left of your grace and don’t let go. Please don’t die on me again.”


	10. Diversion

Dean had expected the teens to be making stupid plans on how to get in the camp. He wasn’t expecting this. A lot of those teenagers were having full-blown panic attacks. Just thinking about how strong they’d been in Vegas and on those convoy trucks and seeing what they’d been reduced to now pissed him off. He’d promised them that this would be a safe place for them to go. He’d promised them that they would have a chance at living a life again, and the people in that camp were robbing them of that. There were tears streaming down their face as they sobbed out broken words. The jist of what they were saying was that they felt like the kids they looked out for had been taken from them all at once and put in the back of those trucks to be shipped off somewhere they wouldn’t return from again. Dean knew all about how something like this could make a person have flashbacks, and that’s what those kids were experiencing. 

He was standing on the sidelines taking it all in and trying to figure out the best way to approach this when one of them saw him. That one said his name, and a few of the others heard, and then they all came running up to him, like they believed he would fix this, so he told them he’d take care of it. He told them that Beth was inside the camp getting the smaller kids out. A couple said they’d heard she was dead, and Dean had to stop the panic that started to spread like wildfire again. “I just saw her. She’s fine.” 

Ty pushed through the rest of the kids and came up to him before he paused and started to break down as he flung himself at Dean for a hug. “I’m sorry. I tried to help them, Dean, and I made it worse, and I left her alone and –“ 

“There’s no way I would’ve left without trying to help them either, Ty . . . gave her a chance to thin their numbers if they were aiming at you and forgot all about her, didn’t it?” Ty nodded, and Dean said, “She’s okay, Ty.” He wasn’t quite sure what to do. He’d never seen Ty shaken . . . ever, including when he was at that vamp trading post, and Andrea looked like she was about 10 seconds from breaking down and doing the same thing . . . Less than 10 seconds, because she started hugging him too and was crying about being the reason Beth had to give up her gun. 

“You know what Beth says when stuff like this happens? She says it all worked out in end. She’s fine. She’s still standing.” 

Ty took a deep breath and said, “What about the baby?” 

Andrea stood back and said, “What baby?” _Crap._

Dean stepped back to put his hands on Ty’s shoulders, so Ty would look at him. “Gabriel healed everything on her. Got it?” 

Ty nodded before he said, “And you’re here, so I take it you got my message.” _Yeah, if you’re the one that did it, I think you saved both our lives._

“Yeah, it was hard to miss. Next time try a sat phone.” Ty smiled, and the Dean said, “I’m guessing that leaving that message is how you know?” Ty nodded. Guess it had to come out some time. “Yeah, well . . . consider yourself a future babysitter.” That seemed to cheer Ty up some, and Dean noticed the other kids were all standing around listening and wanting to be babysitters too . . . couldn’t really ask for better kids to do it, so he got lucky there, and now they were all starting to calm down and wanting to know what to do next.

“When Beth gets to the clinic, Sam and me are gonna go up to the gate to distract them while she goes in to get Adam. She needs to find Cas too . . . Right now she’s at the cabin in the Northeast corner of the camp . . . you guys know where that is?” For some reason all the kids looked up at the sky and then pointed in the right direction, so he smiled before he said, “Who has kids in that cabin?” A couple of hands were raised. “Think she just got those kids out, because she was there for about 7 minutes, and now she’s on her way to the cabin in front of it. She probably sent the kids to the hunter’s shack to hide out until Ben and Adrien get there to tell them what to do to get over the wall. They’ve got werewolves in there with them, so they’ll keep them safe.” 

One of the kids asked how he knew that, so Dean said, “God put a GPS tracker for Beth in my brain, so I always know where she is,” and not a single one of them questioned him. They still believed everything he told them even after he’d told them this place would be safe for them. After that, he gave them a play-by-play of what Beth was doing while she did it, so he could let them know what cabins she was hitting. That calmed them down even more. When Beth stalled at the clinic, he knew it was time for him and Sam to go.

“Is that Bobby?” Sam asked as they approached the gates of the camp. 

“Yeah,” Dean answered with barely concealed anger. If the council was down the way Beth thought it was, and it looked like it was because none of them were up there, then Bobby wasn’t with them. If Bobby wasn’t with them, then there had to be a reason for that, and that reason was that he was in charge. If Bobby was in charge, then he was the one responsible for tonight. 

“Dean . . . Sam,” Bobby called down gruffly from the top of the wall. 

“I got your message . . . what is it you want, Bobby?” Dean called up. 

“Well, if your up and walkin’ around, I assume Beth is too . . . that girl’s got more than 9 lives,” Bobby responded without answering what Dean asked. He noticed the ones on the wall all seemed to know what Bobby was talking about, which meant they all knew what happened to Beth would happen to him. 

Sam kept his eyes on Bobby and leaned into Dean’s shoulder to say, “You thinking what I’m thinking?” _They all knew going in that it was a 2 for 1 kind of deal._

Dean watched Bobby and answered Sam. “Yeah, something like this is why we never told anyone that wasn’t Adam, Dad, and Bobby . . . only reason we told Bobby was cuz Dad was with Beth when we were with Famine . . . she couldn’t exactly hide bleeding from the eyes from Dad, and Bobby walked into the kitchen in the middle of Dad wanting to know what was going on.” 

Sam looked at Dean and said, “I know this probably isn’t the time, but I was thinking that Beth and me should look into this more . . . see if we can explain things like this happening, cuz that looks like Bobby, but it’s not Bobby, because Bobby would never do this to you. And Jo shooting her . . . that never should’ve happened. I don’t care how much Jo wanted to go to Carthage. Jo liked Beth. And what about that guy in the bar when you had to get Chuck, because I was with Lilith, or the one –“ 

Dean cut him off and said, “Get to the point, Sam.” They could afford to draw this out some, but not so long that Bobby got suspicious. 

“Maybe there’s more out there that will explain it, but I think maybe the prophecy about Michael’s vessels protecting Beth didn’t just mean from the Apocalypse or hunting or even the tablets. Maybe it was talking about this in some way. Adam, Dad, and you knew . . . Bobby is the odd one out. Dad wasn’t around long enough, but I know he’d never do something like this to you . . . think he kinda like her after he got to know her. You should’ve seen them on the drive back from Nivius, and Adam’s known about it longer than anyone other than Cas and Gabriel, and he hasn’t done anything with it yet. Maybe you, Dad, and Adam are immune to it or something.“ 

_Immune to what? Attacking Beth? What the hell is he talking about? All right maybe he’s right about this and the guys at the bars. Both have a desperate needy feel to them . . . not Jo. Jo got pissed off and shot her to get her out of the way, and Sam’s not using this as an excuse for any of the things he’s done to Beth either. Wouldn’t hurt to look into it if there’s something to the rest of it though._ Sam wanting to look into it with Beth was a new one, and Dean was all right with that as long as they were all on the same page, so he nodded in agreement before he quietly said, “You ready?”

“When you are.”

Dean shouted up to Bobby, “You want me and Sam to leave? Then you’re gonna have to give us Adam and Cas, so I can take them home.” 

“Home is it? Well, that’s what I figured. You’ve only been gone a month, and you’ve already got a new one.” The tone said it all. _He wants me here, or I have to die? Maybe it’s not just Beth that has the problem Sam’s talkin’ about._ He glanced at Sam, and Sam nodded, like he was thinking the same thing. 

“My baby still runs just fine, and she’s all the home I’ve ever needed . . . I’m bringin’ her with me too. You want this camp, then it’s yours,” Dean called back like he didn’t have a care in the world. Internally, he was was seething. His Dad put him onto this place, so a part of him felt ties to it because of that, and technically, it was never his . . . it was just an abandoned safe house . . . but he had memories here. Memories of a time when he’d been able to step away from his shitty life and all the problems with Sam by training Beth and getting to know her better or training Adam and getting to know him better or playing poker and chess or helping put up a Christmas tree and playing a stupid paintball game and hanging out in the hunter’s shack for the best Christmas he could remember, and they brought all these people here and shared it with them . . . these people that they’d saved . . . this was the closest place to his own home that he’d ever had outside of his car, and it was being stripped from him. He’d even planned on having his kid go to the school here. The bunker was beginning to feel like his new home, but he’d only been there for a month. He didn’t have the memories there that he had here.

“What do you mean if I want this camp, then it’s mine? It’s always been mine. I’m the only one that ever runs things around here, cuz you’re too busy goin’ off to God knows where doin’ God knows what,” Bobby called down. 

Dean didn’t get a chance to respond to that one because, Sam yelled, “Are you kidding me, Bobby? He’s been out saving people’s lives . . . those people on the wall standing next to you with their guns aimed at him . . . He saved their lives . . . in order to do that . . . he had to leave here . . . And when has Dean ever stayed in one place for more than a few days at a time? Never . . . might be what I always wanted for me . . . might be what I always wanted for him, but that’s not what Dean ever wanted . . . not as long as he’s got his family around him, and that’s what Beth, Cas ,and Adam are . . . family . . . Saving people, hunting things. The family business. That’s always been the way he lives his life . . . if you thought that was gonna change, and that he’d stay here 24/7 for 365 days a year, then you don’t know him at all, Bobby . . . and you should, cuz you helped raise him and me when our Dad wouldn’t do it. Used to think you were family too, because what was it you used to say again? . . . Oh, yeah ‘family don’t end with blood.” 

Dean glanced at Sam when he was done. It felt really good to have Sam by his side again. Sam was right. That apple pie life was always Sam’s dream. Dean always felt like he had to be on the go, like he was climbing the walls when he stayed anywhere for too long. He’d found a woman that he wanted to come back to at the end of every day, and she wanted that with him, and she, Cas, and Adam wanted to keep fighting alongside him. It looked like Sam did too after being gone for a year. That was all the normal he was really ever lookin’ for out there. It was good to hear that Sam understood that about him, and it was good to hear Sam say something he’d said to Sam way back when they started looking for their Dad. It made it feel like another new beginning. 

“Ain’t you one to talk about knowin’ what’s best for Dean? Last I heard you were havin’ your demons torture him,” Bobby called down. Sam quietly asked Dean where Beth was. They had to do this fast before the bullets started flying, but they had to buy Beth enough time to get out of there. 

Dean whispered, “She was in the clinic until a minute ago. Now she’s moving towards the cabin. I’d say 5 minutes . . . make that 7. She just veered off towards the stores . . . she’s working something.” 

Sam nodded before he looked back up at Bobby and shouted, “You’re right . . . I did do that, but not before I had him mounted to the wall through his wrists . . . He shot me in my right wrist a few months before that . . . I’ll never be able to hold a knife or a gun with it the right way again, so I thought maybe he should see what that felt like . . . Now I know he did it to send me a message and get me to stop doing what I was doing. At the time, I thought he was being a dick, so I didn’t listen . . . I learned how to do all the torturing and killing with my left hand, so I could keep doing it. I killed a man and a teenage girl in front of him for no other reason than to hurt him. I wanted him to know he couldn’t save them, because I knew that would do worse to him than anything I could’ve had those demons do. I didn’t even think about their lives having meaning until . . . until I had to face up to the fact that I was never going to be able to go back and change things . . . And none of what I did is Beth’s fault, so I don’t really get why you all felt the need to try and kill her tonight . . . she’s been as important to saving all of your lives as Dean has . . . I can’t believe this is the way you’d repay them for everything they’ve done for you, and I bet they never asked any of you for anything other than for you to do your jobs around here, so they could do theirs . . . None of what I did is their fault . . . It’s my fault for not listening to Dean or Beth or Cas or even Adam before I did any of this. I thought I was right. I wasn’t, and all of those people standing up there next to you that are still pointing their guns at Dean instead of me like they should be . . . All of you paid, because I didn’t care about what I was doing to you . . . I ruined your lives. I killed your families. That was all me. I’m not proud of it. I can’t even say I’m sorry, because a word like that doesn’t mean anything under these circumstances. It’d be like a slap in the face if I apologized with two words. I’ll never be able to make up for what I did, and I don’t deserve to be forgiven for doing that to Dean or Ryan or Julie or for what I did to the teenagers out here in the woods or for sending kids to monsters or for releasing the Croataoan virus or for turning people into monsters or for any of the other things I did . . . and the time for me to be punished for that will come, but until then, I can try to clean up my mess and protect the lives that are left . . . and two of those lives belong to my little brother and my friend, and you have them in there with you, so let Dean take them home, and we’ll leave. You’ll never have to see him or me or the rest of our family again. We’ll go back to living our lives in the shadows away from everyone else the way we’ve always done . . . protecting people without most of them knowing that we do.” Sam paused and said to Dean, “That 7 minutes includes running and trying not to be killed time, right?” 

Dean grinned and said, “Yeah, we should get goin’ before one of them gets brave enough to take the first shot . . . all bets are off after the first one goes,” before he and Sam started backing away from the wall.

Dean indicated for Sam to keep going while Bobby shouted down to try and keep them within range a little longer, “I notice Beth’s not out there with ya . . . she hidin’ out in the woods?” She was still in there, and it didn’t look like she was going to go any time soon, because now she was running all over the place. Dean was gonna have to go in and drag her out if she wasn’t out here soon. 

“Nah, sent her back home. Thought she had enough of this place for one day . . . I’ve got Gabriel out here with me. He’s gonna start taking these teenagers back there too. Once I know they’re safe, I’m coming back for Adam, Cas, and my car . . . if any of ‘em are dead or anything’s out of place on any one of ‘em, I’ll burn this place to the ground,” Dean called back. 

He and Sam were nearly there, and after two more steps, Dean indicated for Sam to turn and move as fast as he could the rest of the way. They were out of time. The first shots from the wall started whizzing by them as soon as they turned. “They never took their guns off of you, Dean . . . not even when they found out who I was or what I did. Could it be a witch or something like that?” Sam finally asked when they were far enough away they could slow down some. 

“Maybe. But why isn’t everyone in there under the spell? The council isn’t . . . don’t think most of the people who are supposed to be guards are either. The real guards on the wall wouldn’t have missed,” Dean responded while he ushered the kids away from the camp. These kids looked freaked out and cold. They’d been out here too long if they’d been out here for hours with Beth too. 

“It’s not a spell. It’s just them, and they took one look at you and one look at Dean, and Dean is the one they think is a threat. Especially after what they did to Beth,” Missouri answered coming up to them from the side. 

They should be far enough back where they were now, but that wouldn’t stop anybody inside the camp from coming out to get at them. “Sam, I need you to move these kids south. Keep them together. We can’t leave them in the last place we were spotted . . . no point in covering your tracks. There’s too many to hide. Watch their backs. I’ve got to go in and get Beth,” Dean said before he asked Missouri where Gabriel was. 

“He said somethin’ about getting your car . . . said you wouldn’t be you without it,” Missouri answered before turning to help Pamela, Cameron, and Sam get the kids moving in a different direction. _That means the angel wards are down. Gabriel and Cas can work together to get these kids to Kansas. One of them will have to stay with them because of the Croats._

Dean turned to head north and saw Dr. Thomas running towards him. She looked like she was falling apart, and normally she was a no nonsense kind of woman. She sputtered out, “Dean, you need to come with me. I don’t know what she’s going to do, but she made me get them and the kids out,” before she took off running back the way she came. 

Dean glanced at Sam to make sure he’d be all right, and Sam gave him a nod, so Dean jogged after her and slowed down when he saw a group of a few thousand kids walking through the trees towards him . . . the rest of the council, most of the real guards for the walls, the parents of a few of the kids, the rest of the werewolves from Tom’s camp, Chuck, and Kevin were all helping to keep the kids moving and together.

Seeing all those people, it registered that Dean had no idea where they were gonna put them all, but that was somewhere in the back of his mind, because most of his focus was on who Abbey and Tom were carrying at the front of the long procession. They both looked dead. He knew he said he wanted their bodies, but he hadn’t actually let himself think they were dead.   
His jog became a sprint until he got to them. 

Adam looked really bad. His clothes were soaked in dry blood. He was deathly pale, and his lips were blue, but Dean sort of picked up on what the doctor was saying. Adam would be okay once he got some rest and more blood. She’d already given him about 1½ pints but she’d spent most of her time working on Cas, so Dean went straight to Cas. 

The doctor was filling him in on what had happened . . . getting Cas away from the wards should help him, but what they did to Cas with his angel blade . . . and the doctor was saying something about how they’d branded him with something Beth had to cut out of his side, because it was killing him . . . knowing that he might lose Cas and that Cas had used the last of his strength to save Adam, the anger that had been threatening to boil over in Dean all night finally did, and he went storming off towards the wall.


	11. The Chaos of Moving to a New Home

I was nearly set, and I didn’t have much time if they were going to go ahead with their scheduled shift change . . . _should be soon_ . . . I looked at my watch . . . _should’ve been about 10 minutes ago . . . the distraction at the front gate might buy me a few more minutes if it makes them a little slower in getting to their posts_. 

I stopped when I sensed Dean moving towards me through the camp and waited for him in my hiding spot behind the hunter’s shack. When he came up beside me, I glanced over at him, and he looked intense in a way I hadn’t seen him look since he was a vampire. “You saw them?” He gave me a side-glance and nodded. He was in full hunter mode. “Took a while to set everything up -” 

“You need help with anything?”

“Nope. You might want to stay here for a while . . . Probably mess up your suit.” 

He relaxed a little before he looked at me. “You got a way out?” I had vague recollections of that night. Gabriel had hidden those memories until the right time, and the right time happened after I was buried under an avalanche of my memories of Heaven that I still wasn’t letting myself remember, so I hadn’t remembered that night at all until Dean told me what Gabriel had showed him. Dean hadn’t gone into any specifics on what we’d said . . . just what had happened, but it was enough to jar something loose. He needed one more line from that night, and I thought he'd be okay. 

“Yeah . . . Do you?” I could feel that anger roll back off of him more before he gave me a brief smile, so I asked him if he wanted to do the honors. 

“Nah, think I’ll sit back and enjoy the show.” 

_All right. Here goes nothing._ I’d just done a final walk through of all of my targets, and I had the best spot in the camp to make sure nobody else had gone where they shouldn’t, so I knew there would be no loss of life. I kept the detonators in my coat pocket, and the first thing to go was their store building. They didn’t deserve to have all the things that had been handed to them from the supply runs over the last 2 months after what they did to Adam and the other hunters. Gwen and the Pastor had nasty head wounds. Stephen’s arm would need to go in a sling although I suspected he’d be like Dean about it. Rufus and Jody were both banged up. 

The next target was the mess hall. They didn’t get to have something that Rob and Carl built for them, because they’d tied Rob and Carl up along with the rest of the council after everything those two men had worked so hard to build. I did the same thing with the school, because they weren’t fit to have kids here. The clinic and the greenhouses they could keep, because they hadn’t hurt the doctor, and they needed food until they could start going out to get their own supplies, but I targeted all the cabins that didn’t have people in them. They were all connected, so they blew up one right after the other, and then the last thing I blew before the people at the front gates could come down and run into it was the main cabin . . . the one that had been our safe house back when we were just hunting. They didn’t deserve to have our cabin.

“Work for you?” He took a deep breath and nodded. He was less pissed off now and feeling more like he was watching his home go up in flames, and I felt that way too, so I leaned my head against his arm. He wrapped it around me, while we watched our cabin burn to the ground, and him doing that made me feel better. Judging by the feelings I was picking up off of him, holding onto me made him feel better too . . . it was a little like he was remembering what was important instead of the place. 

I didn’t expect gratitude for us saving them. I didn’t expect them to think that we’d done anything to build this camp. I did expect them not to shoot at children in the woods, not to tie up all of the people who were supposed to be in charge, not to hold the small kids hostage from the teenagers, not to shoot Adam and expect me to watch him bleed out, not to have them want the doctor fix Adam enough that they they could execute him to draw me out and make sure I watched him die, and not to torture Cas, who had done everything he could for this camp. 

“Uh, what’s your way out?“ I looked where Dean was looking. People had caught sight of us and were running our way.

Gabriel popped up behind us saying, “That’s where I come in. Gotta say, Beth . . . you’re getting better with your flare. I taught you well,” before he snapped his fingers, and Dean and I were outside the bunker with the rest of the camp and our little hunter’s shack. Gabriel had brought the whole thing with us foundations and all. He told us to wait there and then disappeared. 

“You got much ammo,” Dean asked. 

“Not enough. Didn’t think I’d need any, so I didn’t bring any spare magazines other than my one silver one,” I answered while I pulled my gun and told the kids to get near the garage doors and protect Cas and Adam if anything got past us. I knew nothing would, but it gave them a job they thought they had to do to keep them preoccupied. Most of them hadn’t seen Croats in almost a year, so I didn’t want them getting scared and running off. 

Dean told the people that weren’t armed or who had poor aim to go stand with the kids, and then he told the hunters and werewolves to stand in a semi-circle surrounding those adults and the kids, because Croats were gonna be heading towards us any second. 

When Dean handed me a few magazines, I took off my coat and threw it on the ground behind me, so I could move easier and put the magazines in my hoodie pocket. I didn’t need the coat. Down here it was the weather you would expect for mid-September. 

“Well, aren’t you full of surprises. Now I know why you kept your coat on all day even when we had lunch together. I can see you’ve been blocking me and Pamela from knowin’ that one,” Missouri said from somewhere behind me after I turned back around to face the front. 

_I can’t block something like that unless you’re looking for it in my head. At this point, I’m starting to think it’s just God doing it. And why does everyone think I’m fat? . . . Maybe it’s because I don’t exactly scream Mom-to-be . . . You’re being a little hard on yourself . . . No, you’re wrong. That is absolutely why they all think I’m fat._ Dean snorted and looked down at me. “What?” 

He shook his head and lined up his first shot while he said, “Nothin’ . . . you just talk to yourself a lot in your head. It’s like there are two of you in there . . . think you always have. You did it you were hypnotized and telling me about that memory in Heaven, but I didn’t know how much you still do it until tonight.” Then he calmly blew the Croat away. 

I followed suit a few seconds later as more started to spill around the sides. “Yeah . . . about that . . . It was you, wasn’t it? I don’t know how you did it, but thanks.” Whatever he’d done, it’d allowed him to hear what I was thinking out there in the woods, and I got the feeling that he was the one that healed me somehow. That’s why it took longer for me to heal. It wasn’t Gabriel at all. It was Dean. 

“It was somethin’ Sam said . . . He figured out a few things about our connection. Should be able to use it to get around Raphael if he ever tries to block it . . . And it wasn’t just me . . . Sam helped try to stop the bleeding while I was -“ He stopped talking to focus on putting down a Croat that was pretty close to being a giant. It was almost a foot taller than Sam. 

“You were in limbo . . . what was yours like?” I asked taking out a very small woman. 

“Not white walls and doors anyway . . . more like that dark cave you have as a door outta there . . . with a lot of tunnels heading away from it. Just had to find the right one.” 

“Oh come on! What the fuck is that?” Sam never said fuck, so I looked where he was aiming his gun and snorted as I saw a handful of Croat clowns coming our way. 

“I’m pretty sure the circus was in town when the virus hit . . . Tall man, small woman . . . target practice with clowns . . . They’re all yours, Sam.“ _At least they’re something he’ll be able to shoot withou–_

My thoughts were cut off when he started doing just that. He was still a good shot with his left hand. He hadn’t been shooting much up to that point unless something got too close to our perimeter for his liking. As soon as the clowns were all down, he went back to the less is more approach. He’d really done a good job tonight. He’d been at his best, and he wasn’t expecting it, so I was going to let Gabriel heal something on him. Maybe I’d let Sam pick what got healed. 

I heard movement on the roof behind us and turned to focus on them, so they couldn’t jump down on the kids, and Rufus shouted, “Why aren’t we moving inside,” as a couple of croats got a little too close to him. 

“Gabriel said to wait here. I have the feeling we’ll want to do what he says,” I answered while killed a couple more on the roof and Dean helped take the pressure off of Rufus by killing the ones around him. 

“Hope this place has a hell of a lot more room that it looks like it has,” Gwen shouted from a bit further down. _I think that’s what the surprise is._

Stephen laughed while he took out a zombie dressed as a deranged ringleader and said, “Think you were right about the circus being in town . . . let me know if you see one of those contortionist assholes . . .They’re mine . . . Think the action down here is more my style.” 

Rufus glanced at him. “That’s what comes from youth . . . you’re all a bunch of damn fools.” 

Gabriel came back and did some moderate smiting to take out the rest of the croats before he took off again and must’ve gone to clear out the croats that were still at the front door, because no more came around the corner or over the roof after that. 

Looking around . . . most of our camp was here. Gabriel seemed to have brought people here from the outposts too . . . in fact there were a few cows I knew weren’t there before the shooting started. Chuck and Kevin said something about radioing the outposts as soon as Rick cut them loose, but I didn’t think those people would be coming with us with us. They must’ve started getting ready to leave as soon as they heard we were leaving and were ready to go by the time Gabriel went back for them. Maxine was here, and so were Shane and Sean along with a decent amount of our guards. The best that our camp had to offer had been completely blindsided by everything that happened tonight.

As soon as I was done scanning the crowd for the faces of people I knew, I made my way over to Cas and Adam. Adam looked a little better, but he was still unconscious, and Cas didn’t look much better at all. I put my coat under Adam’s head as a pillow while we waited for Gabriel to get back and went to sit behind Cas, so I could put his head in my lap and rub his forehead like you would a sick human to make him relax and feel more comfortable. Maybe it’d help him heal faster. 

He hadn’t flinched or moved at all during our battle with the croats. I knew angels could get knocked out if they were banished. It messed with their grace and took their power away from them, but I didn’t think it should be this hard for him to heal . . . either that sigil I’d cut off of him had done permanent damage before I could get it off, or . . . “Cas . . . Are you in there? You haven’t been cut off from Heaven again, have you?” 

Dean came over to sit next to me and caught the tail end of what I said. He flicked his eyes towards me before he looked down at Cas and lightly shook Cas’s shoulder. 

“Cas? You pretending to sleep so you don’t have to answer that or are you really down for the count? Shouldn’t be taking you this long to come around.” Dean looked at me when he got no response and asked, “What’d that sigil you had to cut off of him do?”

“It did some serious damage, and he has to concentrate harder to heal himself because of it, but he’s awake. He’s just pretending to sleep and is ignoring your questions . . . Michael cut him off awhile ago . . . right around the time Castiel decided to go back to your camp instead of going to Heaven after Beth brought Sam here. Castiel doesn’t think his mission is over, and Michael does,” Gabriel said as he came to sit on the other side of me. 

“How does it work exactly . . . him getting cut off . . . You’re a special case, because you’re an archangel and made from different . . . stuff, but shouldn’t he be stronger when he’s around you if it’s Heaven’s collective host that helps you guys charge up?” 

Gabriel smirked at Cas still pretending to sleep and said, “Yeah, he is stronger when I’m around. It’s part of the reason I’ve been checking in so much even though he’s here to keep an eye on things. It gives him a little boost. It’s why it took him so long to get the hang of making that computer for you . . . He needed to wait until I was there to get the energy he needed to do it. He should’ve had it done in a minute or less . . . It’s also why I’m sitting here now that my other job is done, so he can heal faster.” So, they’d been in on this together. Michael may not approve, but Cas had Gabriel’s full backing to be here. 

I leaned forward and whispered in Cas’s ear, “It doesn’t matter to us if you’re fully powered. We wouldn’t think any less of you, but you should’ve told us, so we know to keep a closer eye on you during the hunts we’ve been planning.” 

Dean was grinning at Cas still pretending to sleep and added, “Wouldn’t have sent you on so many milk runs if we knew they were gonna take it out of you.” 

Cas didn’t open his eyes or change his facial expression when Dean said that, but he did say, “It’s my job as the Godfather,” before he frowned in Gabriel’s direction and added defensively, “I’m attempting to hold onto my grace . . . what’s left of it . . . Beth said that’s what I have to do, so I don’t die on her again. I am not pretending at anything.” 

Gabriel watched him and said, “That’s a bunch of crap. He’ll need to find somewhere to lie down like this for a few days to rest, but he won’t die. He and Adam are in the same boat except Castiel is awake and grumpy. You should hear the things he’s calling me over angel radio right now.” I smiled and Dean laughed at that.

“So . . . I guess that means you have to stay with us for good, so you can make sure he still feels like an angel.” 

Gabriel looked away from me. “I would, but I want to keep an eye on Rafa and Mikey . . . I’ve heard through the grapevine that you’re now a top priority for both of them because of the angel tablet, and Rafa’s still looking for a fight . . . I won’t be gone long . . . If you need anything, call me, and I’ll be back as soon as I can . . . I’ll send you anything in the libraries I can find on your little problem while I’m at it. There has to be something that can explain why you keep having these problems with other humans . . . not a big fan of research, so maybe you could get Gigantor to help, since it was his idea.” 

He looked up at Sam who was standing near us and listening to everything. Sam looked really young. Almost like he wasn’t sure if he should join us, because he still felt a little left out, but he didn’t have anywhere else to go, because everyone else out here was staring at him or whispering about him. Dean nodded his head towards the wall beside him to indicate that Sam should come stand next to him and be included, so Sam did. 

“If Michael catches you . . . what’ll happen?” I didn’t get an answer for that one from Gabriel, and I hadn’t expected one. I’d used it to set up a question I’d been wondering for a while now. “Is it because you were taunting him from the sidelines when I had him in that ring of fire?” 

Gabriel smiled and said, “Did Castiel –“ at the same time Dean and Sam both asked, “What?” 

“It wasn’t Cas . . . After I told Michael he was in time out, he looked off to the side for a full minute and looked pissed off. I’ve seen Sam give Adam that same look . . . and if you were keeping tabs on me after you found me again in that warehouse, you had to have been there for something that big . . . What’d you say?” 

He told me in Enochian, and loosely translated, you could say it meant that he’d told Michael that he was sticking around and making sure nobody interfered in case Michael was thinking of asking the angels in Heaven for help. Michael could go cheer himself up by breeding with the mouths of a herd of goats when it was all over, or Michael could go with him, and he’d show him how to have a good time . . . maybe teach him a few things about what it was like to loosen up like a human if Michael wanted to know why Gabriel was our favorite archangel. 

Cas burst out in a quick laugh while I translated to Dean and Sam, and then Gabriel said, “I think he must’ve gone for the goats, because he didn’t take me up on my offer,” which made Cas laugh a little more.

“So, you can intervene . . . you just can’t let us know?” I was stalling. I wasn’t ready for him to leave. 

“I didn’t interfere . . . I was making sure it was a fair fight. He played his hand, and he lost . . . I didn’t want him to cheat.” 

_Yeah, he didn’t like it when I cheated on the games we played when I was growing up. I’m better about it than I used to be . . . most of the time._

“No, you’re not. You still cheat all the time unless you’re playing Dean.” 

_See, I’m better about it._ “Cheating for me is okay, because it helps me survive.” 

Cas joined in by saying, “What about when you were playing checkers with me a couple of weeks ago?” 

_I already told you. It’s not cheating when I block you from knowing what I’m thinking, Cas._

Cas looked up at me and said, “You pointed behind me to make me look at nothing, and when I turned back around, you had an extra king . . . did that help you survive?” 

_Not yet._ “Well, it will someday. Now I know an angel will fall for something like that . . . and you still won, because you did the same thing a little later, except you said Sam was calling me downstairs, but I couldn’t hear him because of my human hearing. He wasn’t. He thought I was crazy, and I thought he was being annoying to entertain himself. When I came back, my king was gone, and my pieces were lined up differently, so no matter what way I moved, you’d be able to jump them all.” 

Cas smiled marginally. “I didn’t do that . . . Gabriel told me to say that, and then he did it.” Great, now Gabriel was teaching Cas how to cheat or at least pick up what cheating looked like. 

“What about the night I was coming back from Cicero with Ben? Was that you?” I asked turning to look at Gabriel. He didn’t even bother asking me how I knew that. I’d had a lot of time to think about it. 

“I may have done what I could to get you to change your mind, but you were as stubborn as ever, so I kept the wind going to keep them from hearing you walk around on their porch,” Gabriel said before looking down at Cas who had a different opinion on Gabriel's level of involvement.

“You've interfered much more than we're supposed to interfere.” 

“Funny coming from you."

"I was asked for help."

"Yeah? Were you asked to hide her memories of that 4th season? I just gave her some cover by making it windy, the same way I gave her cover in that cemetery, so Zachariah and his thugs didn’t know she was there. I didn’t do any of the fighting for her . . . It’s not like she really needed the help anyway.” 

_Hiding me in Stull probably was interfering. I couldn’t have done anything I did if they’d found me. I don’t think it would’ve mattered if he’d done the wind thing on that farm or not. I still would’ve massacred them the way I did . . . and he saw me do it._

I wasn’t sure how I felt about him seeing me like that. Who wants their adopted Dad to see them execute 5 men?

“What drew your attention to me when I was hiding out as the Trickster, Sam?” 

Sam looked confused at Gabriel's question and answered, “You sent a professor that liked to sleep with his students out the window . . . made him think he saw an angry spirit . . . and while we were there, you killed a guy who was in charge of animal testing by having an alligator eat him.” _You’re a lot stricter than me . . . and you let me go be a scientist that played around with mice . . . you’re a hypocrite._

Gabriel gave me a side-glance and defended himself. “Maybe or maybe he was doing more wrong than just his job.”

“Hey, how’d you two meet?” Sam asked now that he’d been brought into the conversation. 

“I was in a grave, and when he showed up, he tried to pawn me off on Kali . . . whatever she said when you guys met her, she knew he was an archangel before that. He had to tell her or else she wouldn’t have come.” 

Dean looked at me for more of an explanation, so I started to say, “She –“ 

“No, not that . . . the bein’ in a grave part.” 

I shrugged. “I was in my body when Sam and Bobby buried me. They didn’t check for a pulse after they confirmed Rachel was dead. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, because I thought I had an appointment with Gabriel, so I kept my eyes closed, because Sam had shut them for her. It’s not like I knew how to open them again anyway. I never had eyelids before that . . . oh, come on . . . don’t look at Sam like that. You know Rachel was buried next to you, and you know I came down here a few minutes after she died.” 

Dean ignored me and said to Sam, “You didn’t check before –“ 

Sam quickly responded, “Rachel was dead as in dead, dead. I –“

“Obviously she wasn’t. Remind me not to let you bury me again.” Then Dean turned his annoyance at Gabriel. “How long did you make her wait?” 

Gabriel looked like he felt guilty, so I said, “Does it matter? It wasn’t you it happened to . . . it was me, and everything worked out fine, or I’d be decomposing as we speak, and you would’ve never known the difference.” Dean glanced away when I said that. _Oh. He already thought of that. That’s why he’s upset._

I skipped past how long I was in the coffin and said, “All he knew before he got there was that God wanted him to take care of a human fugitive from Heaven for 4 months, so he lined up a babysitter to do it for him. The lid came off, and I wish I’d had a camera for that, because I think that’s the only time I’ve ever seen him completely caught off guard by something. They both were. She asked him if that was what angels do to the souls they’re given, and he pretended not to know what she was talking about . . . so she roughed him up a little. I hadn’t learned how to talk yet, so I just watched them until she shoved his head over the grave and told him to take a good look at my soul and tell her there was nothing wrong with it. I had his attention, so I spoke to him in my head and blocked her. I knew who she was, because I’d read about her in Heaven, so I told him that he’d made everything worse by bringing her there, because she’d want to bind my soul to her to keep me from ever having to go to Heaven again. I didn’t want to be bound to her anymore than I wanted to be locked up in a cell. Then I told him that the only help I wanted from him was for him to go and take her with him, so he sat back on his heels, and snapped his fingers to make the lid cover me back up. It was pretty loose, so I heard him promise her some relic she really wanted if she’d just drop it, and then I spent the next 12 hours learning how to move my arms and legs until I could get the lid off by myself.” 

Sam seemed surprised. “That didn’t really –“

Gabriel backed me up. “Yeah, it did. I came back two days later when I was sure Kali wouldn’t go back for her. I thought maybe I could pick up her trail from there . . . wasn’t sure how much of a trail there would be, cuz it’d rained all that day, but I had to start somewhere. I got lucky. She didn’t leave. She was lying on Dean’s grave. When she saw me, she told me to go away again. She was just going to wait for him there. She didn’t understand that she’d have to eat at some point, because she’d never eaten before . . . didn’t know she wasn’t supposed to sleep in the mud, but she liked it . . . She said it was . . . the Enochian equivalent of squishy, I guess you could say . . . and softer than anything she had to lay on in Heaven, and she thought the feel of the rain was spectacular except when it went up her nose . . . Everything she said was in Enochian. I spent half the night trying to get her to tell me why her soul looked the way it did and the other half wishing I hadn’t. Eventually, I convinced her to come with me, because all she could do was crawl, and I told her I’d make sure she could learn how to walk the way everyone else does.” 

I finished it up by saying, “And I was with him until he dropped me off in that cowboy motel room, and then I met the Impala . . . and then I met Sam . . . again and kept my eyes closed for part of that meeting too.” 

Sam looked away at that before he said, “You were better at it the first time. You flinched when you heard Ruby talking.” 

“Well, she did say she thought someone was dead, and I thought she was talking about me. I was a little confused . . . I don’t think if I’d let you know I was alive right after Rachel died that you would’ve really understood why Rachel was speaking in Enochian more than she spoke in English, or why her English accent sounded completely different.” 

Sam gave me a small smile and said, “Yeah, or why she stopped wearing leather.” 

Gabriel was getting ready to leave. I could sense it. “If you run into any trouble, let Cas know, and we’ll come get you. I think I remember where that playground is.” 

Gabriel gave me a stern look. “I’ll let Castiel know if something happens that I’m not expecting, and he will take care of it, but you are not to go back up there for any reason.” _Yeah, that’s not happening. If you’re trouble, I’m going to help you get out of it._ Gabriel smirked and said, “I know that look, Beth. You can block what you’re thinking, but you can’t trick me. It’s why I always knew the wrong presents to get you . . . and word of advice . . . if you try to go up there without Dean . . . well, I wouldn’t want to be you when he finds out.” 

I glanced at Dean, and he looked pissed off by the mere thought of it. Probably shouldn’t do that without him. He shook his head at me slowly as if to say I wasn’t going to go up there at all, and Gabriel said, “You’re worrying over nothing, because nothing’s gonna happen. I’ll be back in a month or two unless you need something. I put up a wall around here. There are about 25 square miles inside of them. I put up enough houses for everyone . . . All the houses are stocked . . . lot of stuff they haven’t had in over a year, so that should keep ‘em happy for a while . . . I put up a barn where all the animals can go. Here’s your key to the bunker. I made sure it’s packed to the rim with food too . . . and there are wards up around the walls for anything and everything. The place is cloaked, so your new camp doesn’t look like anything other than grassland and trees if anyone were to look at it from the outside . . . unless they say the password.” He told us what it was, reached over and put his hand on Sam’s left ankle to heal it, and then told Cas to keep an eye on us. Cas nodded, and with that, Gabriel was gone.


	12. Bonding

Sam walked into one of the libraries to see if he could find something to do that would give him a couple of minutes to himself. Being hobbled was mostly all right. He was getting used to it. It helped that one of his most painful injuries had been taken care of before Gabriel left, and as long as Sam was like this, it kept him from having to go on any hunts. He’d killed enough for 1000 lifetimes. 

He still wanted to help out on the big things, like Crowley and Eve, but going out in search of an ogre . . . no thanks. He was fine staying here to do research with Beth. When they researched together, it became something of a competition for them to see who came up with the answer first. He kind of liked it even though he never told her that and always questioned her when she came up with the answer before him . . . she thought he was being a dick, and in a way he was, because he’d lost, but it was also his way of double checking while internally cursing himself for not having seen something she’d seen. 

It challenged him . . . kind of the way their book club for a party of 2 did. He was looking forward to when Gabriel started sending down things from Heaven’s libraries, because Beth had told him she’d teach him Enochian and maybe a few other languages if he was up for it . . . Yeah, Sam could get used to being left behind . . . Cas and Adam were still at the bunker too, because they were still recuperating. Dean was out there in the Rockies with capable hunters, but none of his family, so he was in constant radio contact. They’d be gone for a week or two depending on how long it took to drive there, scout the area, find the ogre, and kill it. 

The bad part about Sam being hobbled was that it made him stand out, and everyone knew how and why it’d happened. It was like a scarlet letter. He planned on staying in the bunker for now. The kids around here didn’t need to see him and be reminded of what he’d done to them. They were strong kids, but they were incredibly fragile at the same time. 

He’d seen the fragile side when the teenagers were locked out of the camp in Wisconsin . . . It’d torn him apart at the time. He’d done that to them and thousands more than them that were all dead. The only thing that had kept him from breaking down at the sight of them was watching the way the kids had reacted to his brother. They had complete faith in Dean, and seeing that . . . Sam was immensely proud of his brother, and it created a weird mixture of emotions in him where he knew he was the reason those kids were completely traumatized, but at the same time, his brother was the one that gave them any kind of hope at all. No, those kids didn’t need to see him right now without Dean being around, so he’d stay here in the bunker, but there were negatives to just staying in the bunker too. 

For one, Sam had to live with the werewolves. Only Dean could get werewolves and hunters to live side-by-side. Dean had the werewolves move in here for two reasons. One was so that if any of the collars came off, the bunker could be put on lockdown, and they’d be contained. The hunters and other werewolves could work together to get the collar back on or take permanent measures if they couldn’t. The second was because Dean genuinely liked the soldiers and felt like he was one of them. In fact, Dean had taken a few of the werewolves with him on this hunt, so he was training them on how to be hunters. 

Again it made Sam feel a mixture of things. He’d been the one to turn those men into werewolves. He’d been the one that killed their families and ruined their lives, but Dean was picking up the pieces on that for him too by making them feel like they were still men and helpful in the fight for the planet, and again it made him feel really proud of Dean for being able to do that. Dean had grown a lot in the last year, or at least Sam thought he had. 

What was worse than having to live in the bunker with men he’d turned into werewolves was living in the bunker with Kevin, because he’d done a lot of really awful things to Kevin. Sam hadn’t physically tortured Kevin, but he’d kept the kid living in constant terror for a year. He’d do things, like have people brought in to keep Kevin company and then after Kevin got to know them, he’d tell Kevin what would happen to them if Kevin didn’t give him something new from the tablet. When Kevin couldn’t come up with any results, Sam would have those awful things done to those people and make Kevin watch. 

When that stopped working, Sam’d had Meg go in search of Kevin’s Mom. She was dead, but he hadn’t told Kevin that. Instead, he’d told Kevin that he’d found her, and if Kevin gave him something from the tablet every day for a month, he could see her. If there was a day when Kevin didn’t come up with anything, then the month started over. Eventually, Kevin completed the month, and Sam said that it wasn’t one month, but two. When Kevin refused to give him anything else until he got to see his Mom, Sam waited him out for 2 weeks, and then told Kevin he’d killed his Mom, but now he had his girlfriend. He didn’t have Kevin’s girlfriend. Apparently, Dean had saved her and her family, but Kevin hadn’t known that until he got to Wisconsin, and with no sign of his Mom, Kevin had to think Sam had done what he said he did to her.

Every time Kevin walked into a room Sam was in, Sam would duck out of it, or if he saw Kevin walking towards him, Sam would turn around and go the other way. After a week of it, Dean finally pulled Sam aside and asked him what was going on. Sam told him, and Dean made it clear that Sam had to tell Kevin what really happened to his Mom, because it wasn’t right to let Kevin keep thinking his Mom’s death was on him. 

At Sam’s hesitation, Dean gave him a deadline, and said if Sam didn’t do it, he would, but Sam couldn’t do it. He couldn’t look at Kevin, let alone talk to him, because Kevin had seen everything he did from the time the Croat virus was released until Dean and Beth put an end to it. So, Dean had been the one to tell Kevin what really happened to his Mom, but Sam didn’t really think it mattered one way or the other to Kevin. Kevin would always wonder somewhere in the back of his mind whether or not his Mom had died because he’d resisted Sam or if it was really because she’d gone in search of Kevin after Crowley’s demons took him and got shot in what had looked like an attempted carjacking after the Croatoan virus was released. She’d held onto the car and died somewhere along the road between her house and her sister’s house. The only reason Meg found her was because she’d left a note for Kevin to let him know where she was going in case he came back. It was a note Kevin would never get, because it had been burnt along with the rest of Las Vegas. Regardless of whether or not Kevin believed anything Dean said, Sam knew that him not owning up to it had set things back between he and Dean.

“Come on . . . we’re going on a roadtrip before Adam, Abbey, and Cas can stop us,” Beth said coming into the library and interrupting Sam’s thoughts. 

“I’m fine here, thanks.” _How does she always know where I am?_

She looked at him, like she wasn’t going to take ‘no’ for an answer and must’ve interpreted what he was thinking from his expression, because she said, “You’re not that hard to find. The people around here always have eyes on you. All I have to do is ask one of them, and they tell me . . . thought you might want to get away from all that for awhile and see what that Aston Martin can do.” 

That actually sounded all right. He’d thought she wanted to make the rounds around the camp, but leaving the camp completely was something he really needed right now, and she could do all the Croat killing, so he wouldn’t have to do it. “All right, but don’t wreck it . . . it might be your car, but Dean would kill you if you did, and then he’d die too,” Sam said before standing. “Crutches or cane?” 

She thought about it and said, “Crutches to be on the safe side.” 

When they got past the south gate, Beth decided to take advantage of the open roads and opened the car up. It felt good being out on the road without knowing where they were going. Sam was as done with planning and coordinating things as he was killing. After a while, he felt like he should say something. “What happened to your car?” It was clear she loved being able to drive. It wasn’t necessarily the driving itself, but the freedom having her own car afforded her again, or that’s the way it looked to him. 

“I had to leave it in Cicero 3 weeks after the outbreak. I took Lisa’s car and ran it out of fuel.” Beth downshifted, so she could swerve around some abandoned cars on the road, before adding, “And the last time I got to drive before we got here was on a supply run with Adam. Then I went on a supply run with Dean, and he drove, and he drove the whole way to Las Vegas too. The rest of the time, I’ve been walking or traveling by angel.” 

Sam still couldn’t believe Dean let her come with him to Las Vegas if she was 10 weeks pregnant at the time, so he said that, and she grinned. “I jammed his Beth tracker and had Cas hide me in the back of the truck, and then when we were 4 hours out, Cas told him I was back there . . . it was too far for him to take me back.” Sounded like something she would do, but he was still surprised Dean wouldn’t have had Cas take her back, so he said that to her too. “He doesn’t make me do things I don’t want to do . . . not since that one vetala hunt. Every time I haven’t done something he doesn’t want me to do after that, it’s because he’s argued his case convincingly.” 

Sam remembered that vetala case. Whatever Dean had said on that case had made the two of them awkward around each other for weeks. Sam knew it was Dean that had done it, because whenever Dean looked at her, he’d looked like he felt guilty, and when Dean didn’t know she was looking, she’d look at Dean, like she was hurt. It was what had made him buy into his theory that she’d been brainwashed by Lilith a little more. He’d thought that if Beth was intentionally working for Lilith, she would’ve kept buttering Dean up to make it go back to the way it had been before their fight instead of looking sad and lonely and talking to him more than Dean. And after what Alistair did to her, he was convinced the demons were not on her side. That should’ve told him everything he needed to know. If Beth wanted Lilith alive, and the demons wanted Beth dead, then the demons must’ve wanted Lilith dead too . . . hindsight made him think that he was a moron. 

Alistair taking her was also when he knew Dean was in love with her. Sam decided to ask her a question he’d been wondering since forever. It was the little brother in him that wanted to know. He’d never ask Dean. Dean would call him a girl and walk off. 

“So, when did you two get together?” 

Her brow furrowed some, and she said, “I don’t –“ 

“As in when did Dean let you know he was interested in something more than you just being friends?” 

She sped up and said, “I don’t know. I guess he kissed me that first Christmas right after I gave him the witch and shifter amulets, but then we never talked about it after that and went back to being friends.” He knew Beth was the one that gave Dean those amulets. Took him awhile to figure it out for some reason . . . it wasn’t until he made fun of Dean for having the shifter amulet after the last experimental amulet he’d had backfired on him. 

Dean had gotten pissed off and walked away, but he never took it off. If Dean had come up with the idea himself, he would’ve discreetly gotten rid of it after Sam made fun of him, but he hadn’t, which meant someone that meant something to him had given it to him. She looked embarrassed, and Sam liked making her feel that way, so he said, “That’s it? Nothing else happened. He just left it at -“ 

“Yes, that’s it . . . He didn’t do it again until after the siren case.” This was entertaining. 

She was driving faster the more uncomfortable she got, so he said, “What about that time? Nothing –“ 

She didn’t even bother downshifting while she sped around these abandoned cars and said, “Nothing else happened.” Whatever happened with that kiss, it’d made her move to the couch. It wasn’t because she’d turned Dean down the way he’d thought she had. 

“Why’d you move to the couch?” 

“I knew it’d go back to the way it was before that, and I had half a soul, so I didn’t think I could give him what he deserved. I still don’t know if I can . . . for anyone.” 

How was that even possible? How did she not know she loved Dean or Cas or Adam or her dog or maybe even her child? It was obvious that she loved all of those people. It was like the part of her that felt love had been amputated from her brain, so she felt it. She just didn’t know she felt it. Maybe it was tied into how she was able to completely shut down her emotions to access her soul. This half a soul thing was weird. 

“Why’d you think it’d go back to the way it was before that?” 

She slowed down some and said, “That’s what happened after the Christmas thing . . . I don’t know . . . I guess I didn’t really understand any of it or why it happened, and I didn’t want it to mess everything else up.” 

Sam thought about it and said, “But after Alistair . . . it definitely –“ 

She shook her head. “No, I just didn’t want him very far away from me after that, so I went back to sleeping next to him . . . nothing that you’re asking about happened until after you guys got back from Lilith . . . and then he said it couldn’t happen again, so nothing did until the night before Carthage. He asked me if I would be connected to him then, because he didn’t want me to be left behind with Lucifer the way I was in the future Zachariah showed him, and then things happened. Then right before you guys left the next morning, he said it should be casual. He didn’t actually stop going back and forth on us being together until a month before we saw you at that Devil’s Gate in Wyoming.”

None of that made sense. Casual? Sam knew for a fact neither one of them had been with anybody else since they met, and they always slept in the same bed . . . And his brother might as well have been proposing to her if he asked her if she’d be connected to him, and they’d only had sex once before Dean asked her that . . . but then Dean changed his mind again in the morning. 

“Any idea why he’d do something like that?” Sam said a few minutes later. 

Beth bit her bottom lip in thought and said, “He wanted to keep me safe from Lucifer, but he really didn’t want me to be connected to him . . . He thought chicks take things in the bedroom too seriously, and he didn’t want me to feel anything for him, because that’s how he thought this connection business worked, but it’s not, because after we learned more about it and found out he was connected to me too, he said it took more than that for him otherwise he would’ve felt what happened when he cut me during the siren case. We still don’t know everything it took to take it to the lethal level or any other step along the way . . . Anyway . . . he didn’t want me to die with him, and he didn’t want me to go to Hell with him, because that’s where he thought he was going.” 

So, Dean had admitted he loved her to her in a very Dean kind of way without having to say it. Sam still felt like he was missing something, because their entire relationship had been a committed one ever since they met, whether they were having sex or not. “Yeah, but neither of you were with anybody else. How is that casual?” 

She sighed before answering, “He thought that if he called it casual, I would find somebody else.” That was kind of sad even though he’d never say that to Dean. All of that turmoil Dean went through regarding Beth must’ve been why Dean looked like he’d been punched in the gut when Gabriel showed them the night that Dean had chased Beth around when they were teenagers. If it’d happened the way it was supposed to happen, then Dean could’ve been with her without worrying about her being connected to him and without trying to push her away, and if the angels hadn’t taken her to Heaven, she and Dean would’ve been normal soulmates, but without their connection. It meant that this connection they had was definitely not something that would’ve happened if she hadn’t been stuck in Heaven. Sam wondered why that was.

“You still don’t know what happened in your meeting with God?” 

“No. That meeting has been completely blanked out. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to remember it . . . I assume you want to know if the connection was put in place then. I wish I could tell you. I also wish I knew if whatever happened in that meeting is why God listens when I complain in my head about something.” That was a good point. That meeting was the source of a lot of things, like how she got down here, how Gabriel got permission to show her the future, how she was connected to Dean and how Dean was connected to her. 

“Hey, you ever notice you almost always say He or She? Think their’s something to that?” 

“I think He or She and can be anyone we see Him or Her as on any given day, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that He is a She . . . it just depends on how He decides to go undercover.” That was interesting. God undercover. Sam thought maybe she remembered more than she thought she did about that meeting, and he thought maybe there was a reason that was still hidden from her if all her other memories had come back. He wondered if God still looked the same way He or She did in that meeting. Maybe they knew God. 

An hour or so later, they started talking about things that might happen in the future, like when his grandfather was supposed to show up in a couple of years time. That seemed like a pretty big thing that would still happen and bring this Abaddon demon back, because she’d been missing since the 50s. It was crazy to think that’s what really happened to their grandfather, and his Dad never knew. It seemed really unfair. Their grandfather disappearing had been a defining moment in their Dad’s life. 

Another big thing that might happen was Dean being sent to Purgatory for a year. There were a few things they needed to watch out for in the future, and Sam kind of got why Dean didn’t want to talk about it, because it seemed like a lot of crap happened to Dean. Dean had to wonder if being sent to Purgatory would pull Beth to Purgatory with him. And that could be sooner than the next year or in 2 years or later than that. If Dean had already been turned into a vampire almost a year ago, and that wasn’t supposed to happen for another 6 months, then anything bad that Beth remembered could happen at any time, because things had gotten screwed up when the Croatoan virus was released. 

It sounded like in the future she’d been shown, Sam released the primordial darkness in a few years, which had the potential to destroy the universe. Destroying the planet once was enough. Now his main priority was making sure that Dean never got the Mark of Cain. Dean knew about it too, so at least Dean wouldn’t jump into it blind if it came up. Sam snorted when he thought of Dean becoming Crowley’s best friend. That was seriously messed up. It was a good thing they were going to kill Crowley soon. 

“Think you can drive?” Beth asked him as they approached Witchita. 

“Really?” 

Beth slowed down and smiled before she said, “Well, yeah. I’ll need my hands free for this part.” It was ridiculous how excited the thought of driving made him. 

“Then yeah, I wanna see what this car can do for myself.“ 

After they traded places, Sam had to get used to driving a manual, and Beth in a panic told him not to strip the gears. He’d get it. It’d just been a long, long time, since he’d done it. The last time had been not too long before he left for college. Dean stole a car and took him out to teach him, and then Dean kept stealing cars in every town they went to after that until Sam had it down, and a month or two after that was when Sam had left . . . Besides it being a long time since he'd done it, it didn’t help that he had two screwed up legs. 

As soon as he got the hang of it, Beth stopped looking at him, like he was killing her dog, and relaxed some. Sam thought it was good to have a friend again. Becky and Zach were at the camp. So was Sarah. They all looked at him like he was a freak after what he’d done. When he’d been running Las Vegas, he hadn’t had any friends. He’d had followers and demons that wanted something from him or demons and monsters that were terrified of him. Rachel . . . he’d had Rachel, but she messed with his head a lot. He’d hated her after a while, but he’d had nobody else, so he kept her around and tried to look past what was there in front of him to find something that resembled someone that cared about him. Beth called him out on things, but she didn’t look at him like he was a freak. She talked with him about normal things and didn’t let everything he’d done define him going forward. 

Sam knew there was a big part of him that for selfish reasons wasn’t taking off to live out the rest of his life as a hermit away from all of the people at the camp. He couldn’t do it, because he needed Dean. Sam needed someone to treat him like he was normal, and Dean did that, and Beth did that, and he was starting to think that he needed that from both of them before his time was up because of a part of him was terrified of what would happen after he died . . . not necessarily what would happen to him. He deserved whatever came his way. He was terrified of what he would become, so he needed people around him that helped keep that fear at bay by treating him like he was normal. That fear was more crippling than his injuries or his guilt. 

Sam was thinking about those things and missed Beth’s slight grin before she climbed up and out of the car, so she could sit on the window and use an AK-47 on the Croats that they were racing towards, and that took all of his attention. He slowed down some and thought about pulling her back inside. If Dean found out, he’d kill him for letting her do that, but . . . Dean wasn’t here, and she could handle it. She’d just say it all worked out in the end, and Dean would calm down. 

She was a good match for Dean, and that was something else Dean had done to grow this last year. Dean finally understood the give and take that a real relationship needed. And there was that mixture of being proud of Dean for something and at the same time feeling guilt for what he’d done to push Dean into having to put all his faith in Beth . . . and Cas and Adam, because they’d been there for Dean when Sam hadn’t been. 

It didn’t make him feel jealous of them anymore. It made him feel like he was seeing a Dean that Dean maybe always could’ve been if he hadn’t been saddled with taking care of him. He was seeing Dean at his very best, and it was what Dean’d had to become after what Sam did. It made him hate himself even more, because it made him feel like Dean had held himself back for Sam all those years, and Sam was only seeing it for the first time now.


	13. Armies Filling the Void

“Still taking Sam and your car out? … Thought you had 25 square miles to play around in now,” Dean said through the radio. He wasn’t mad. She’d actually waited longer than he thought she would. Just thought he should call her on it. Felt like the right thing to do given that last few weeks. She should be taking it easy.

“Yeah . . . of eyes and ears . . . besides I had to get some reading material to make up for a few things . . . letting Sam give it to them now . . . enemy of my enemy,” she answered back. 

There were people around, so she was talking in code. Sam was constantly being monitored, and she’d wanted to take Sam away from that for a while. And she’d wanted to get some Wonder Woman comic books for the Amazons. Dean already knew she’d been planning on doing that. It was kind of weird that she was having Sam give the comic books to them though. Sure they’d been held prisoner by Crowley’s side, so Sam would have been seen as something of a loose ally for them, but they were Amazons that didn’t really have any real interest in having men as friends, especially after what they’d been through. Dean wasn’t sure Beth had thought that one through. That or she was desperate to find anyone that would be decent to Sam. Maybe things had gotten worse after Dean left to go on this hunt.

“Think you could take a look at the transmission when you get back?” _What the hell did she do to her car?_ Oh, he knew what happened. “You let Sam drive?” 

Dean could hear that she was smiling by the tone in her voice. “Yeah, he was more than a little out of practice, but I needed to be able to use both of my hands.” 

He wouldn’t be back for a while. They still hadn’t seen the damn ogre. “You could get one of the werewolf mechanics to look at it. There were some that worked on the trucks to get them going when we left Nevada . . . if you need it done soon.” 

Beth came back a couple seconds later. “No, it felt fine on the drive back. Just want you to check it. Only the best for my car.” He couldn’t help the stupid grin he had on his face. Were they really talking about normal things that normal people used to talk about all the time . . . something like her asking him to take a look at her car for her felt so normal . . . like a normal he never thought he’d have . . . course it was after she took it out and had his brother drive it, so she could kill Croats to get comic books for some Amazons, while he was out on a hunt for an ogre, instead of her wanting him to look at it when he got home from his business trip . . . It was that same twisted kind of apple pie life he’d had with her since he met her, and it was exactly what he wanted. 

“All right, take one of the other cars if you go out again, and I’ll have a look at it when I get back . . . We haven’t seen it yet, but we know where it’s living . . . There are a lot of bones lying around its cave. Kind of like a wendigo cave. Fresh kills, but not that fresh . . . probably out hunting for food . . . might take a while for it to come back,” he answered while he watched Gwen kicking Stephen’s feet to try and get him up. 

“So, we still have time to research it and let you know how to kill it . . . although I’d say in a pinch, what I did with that aswang should work . . . just throw everything at it,” she answered before she quickly added, “Oh, I almost forgot . . . Kevin thinks he might be getting close to finding the cure.”

That was one he did not expect, and from the way Tom and James, who had at least been pretending that they couldn’t hear everything he and Beth were saying from 100 feet away, looked at him before they started heading his way, they hadn’t either. 

James was the first to ask. “Did she say what I think she said?” 

Dean nodded and said into the radio, “Got a couple of men here who would be interested in what that is when he finds it . . . no closer to finding how to tap into the tablet for the power in it, right?” 

“No, he’s not any closer on that . . . and I haven’t told any of the people here about what he said about the cure. I don’t think I will until he has it. I don’t want them to hassle him for updates and distract him from doing his job . . . he’s going to work on that instead of helping do the research on the ogre.” 

Dean thought about it and said, “As soon as he finds the cure . . . archive everything he’s found on the tablet in one of the libraries there and destroy it . . . I don’t want anyone that gets ahold of it or a prophet that can read it to have that kind of power.” 

“Okay . . . any idea on which one you want to go for next?” ‘Okay’ . . . she didn’t question it. Didn’t say there might be something else that was useful on the tablet . . . just okay, and he knew it’d get done. 

What tablet did he want next? There were still a lot of demons around working for Crowley and the ones from Vegas had probably stuck with Meg, so the demon tablet would be good, but the gates of Hell were closed even if the back doors were still open. That made it harder for the demons to get back out. Eve was running around up here too, so Dean said, “Go for the blood suckers, like vamps and djinn . . . wouldn’t mind findin’ a way to wipe them all out.” 

Beth sounded like she was smiling again and said, “All right . . . once we find a way to kill an ogre, I’ll have Cas take me to go get it, and then I’ll send him your way. He’s starting to get up and around more. He made Jasper and Prince talk to Franklin last night, and Franklin ran out of the room . . . thought his werewolf side was picking up what they were saying and translating it from dog to English. Cas thought that was hilarious, so expect him to try and –“ 

She got cut off and Dean hear Cas in the background saying, “For it to be funny . . . they can not know about it in advance. You shouldn’t tell them.” Cas was finally getting to know what was funny. Tom and James sure seemed to think it was and were already planning on giving Franklin a hard time about it when they got back. 

“Tell him to do it to Stephen . . . not Rufus . . . Rufus says he’ll start ganking everything that moves out here . . . and tell Cas not to waste all his grace on practical jokes between now and then.” 

He heard Cas say, “It is not a waste . . . I tried to heal Adam, and I couldn’t do it . . . Beth said that humans say laughter is the best medicine.” 

Dean snorted. “So you thought makin’ the dogs talk to Franklin would get Adam movin’ faster . . . how’d that work out for ya?” 

Dean heard Adam’s voice come through the radio next. “I don’t know if it made me move any faster, but I haven’t laughed that hard . . . maybe ever . . . We were in the kitchen and Franklin was helping us with dinner . . . the dogs started comparing dog food between here and the camp and then complaining about there not being any female dogs around either place . . . Cas told the rest of us to pretend like we couldn’t hear anything before he did it . . . the look on Franklin’s face was priceless . . . Beth got a picture of it somehow . . . not the same as being there to see though . . . have Cas try it with a deer. I bet Stephen’d love that.” 

Yeah, that’s something they were definitely going to do . . . maybe not a deer. Didn’t want Stephen shooting Bambi in the face, but something. “Hey, have you guys gotten any research done yet?” They all seemed to be taking it easy. He guessed that’s why he’d left them all there. Kind of hard to remember none of them were up for a hunt when they all sounded fine on the radio. He talked to them a lot more than he used to talk to them on the phone. Talking on the radio was easier for some reason. 

Adam said, “Some. Not a lot . . . we’ll hit it hard after lunch. What’d you need?” 

Beth seemed to have taken off somewhere else, so Dean decided to ask him. “Anything you’ve got.” 

Adam sounded like he was flipping through some papers and then said, “Ogres . . . thought to have been killed off in Europe by hunters working with the Men of Letters in . . . 1792 . . . wasn’t noticed by normal citizens because of the French Revolution . . . the Men of Letters over here didn’t see any, but there are a lot of Native American tribes that did, so they weren’t just in Europe . . . we’ll go through that lore after lunch . . . the ones in Europe said they can live in groups and tribes . . . so there might be more than one . . . their hunting grounds are pretty vast . . . can cover a couple 100 square miles, and they can share those, but they’re really territorial around their home caves even with other members of their group . . . they’re stealthy, so they can sneak into towns and villages without being noticed despite their size . . . they have hearing and a sense of smell that would rival the werewolves with you . . . eye sight is just as good . . . doesn’t say if they’re smart, but if this one has stayed hidden this long, then I’d say they have to be . . . uh, they have the strength of 10 men . . . prefer to eat kids, but will eat whatever comes their way if they’re hungry . . . they always bring the victims back to their homes to eat . . . they’re born monsters . . . maybe some kind of a wendigo relative, which means they might be human adjacent . . . might be why this one hasn’t taken part in any of the armies forming out there . . . They wouldn’t listen to Eve, and they stick to their own kind . . . The computer says it’s north of you by about 10 miles and holding its position . . . that’s all I’ve got so far.” Adam was a natural at the research side of things too. Kind of confirmed some things Dean had started to suspect, so he told Adam thanks and that he had to go.

“So, what are you thinking?” Rufus asked coming over. 

“I need to go have a look inside that cave again . . . might be lookin’ at more than one . . . Tell Stephen this ain’t no holiday. He needs to get up and help you guys keep eyes on the mountainsides around us. I’ll let you know what I come up with when I’m done.”

Wasn’t a hard cave to find once they got here . . . the supernatural tracker gave them the general area, and then the werewolves led the way until they got close enough that the hunters could smell the place. Definitely like a wendigo cave . . . the smell of rotting flesh was really strong, and there were some fresh kills no more than a couple weeks old. 

At least Beth wasn’t here for that. She would’ve found a way to roll around in the dead bodies . . . might make her feel sick now though . . . but that morning sickness thing seemed to have disappeared, so who knew? Maybe she’d go back to playing with dead bodies again. That thing she did with the wendigo they hunted was just about the most disgusting thing Dean had seen her do. 

He got used to the hellhound blood after awhile even though that shit was disgusting too. Smelled like sulphur. He got enough of that on him by the end of their trial by fire that it didn’t bother him anymore, but Dean would never roll around in dead human remains. He didn’t like touching ‘em or lookin’ at ‘em, and he sure as hell wasn’t hiding in ‘em. He’d take his chances with the ogre or wendigo or whatever.

Unfortunately, he was going to have to touch these. He needed to look at the tooth patterns on the bones. See if he could tell whether or not there was more than one of those things living here. The computer in the bunker might be able to track and label anything, but if supernatural beings were bunched up in a group, it gave the location as a single dot. So, there could’ve been more here. 

He didn’t know how much of their eating happened while the victim was alive. It looked like they put the victim’s out of their misery using a crushing blow to the back of the head. Maybe it was done before they started eating them, or maybe it was done before they even brought their victim back here. Thigh bones . . . those would be the best place for him to see the tooth marks. 

After 20 minutes of searching, Dean thought he’d figured out that there were at least two . . . possibly a smaller one with them. He looked around the cave again. He knew where they were, so he hadn’t bothered looking for tracks earlier. Nothing really stood out to him in the cave, so he went outside to see if he could confirm the 3rd ogre. Maybe an hour later, he picked up their partial footprints about a half-mile from the cave. There was definitely a 3rd, and it was a lot smaller than the two adults. They were a family of ogres. 

He checked out the footprints of the two adults now that he had a chance. For giants, they were good at covering their tracks if these were the first tracks he’d been able to find, which meant they were smart, and they were really fucking big. He looked up at the surrounding trees. _Yeah, they were easily that tall. How the hell did they stay hidden for so long? Probably the real reason hikers used to get ‘lost’ and were never found out here._

When he got back to the camp they’d set up, he went back to the radio to talk to Chuck. He needed to know when the ogres packed up and headed north. Something about it didn’t feel right. Dean had Chuck go back through the movement patterns of the ogres over the last few weeks. They hadn’t moved from their cave for two weeks, but took off maybe 4 hours before the hunters got here, so it wasn’t because they heard them coming. He didn’t care how good of hearing they had. Not even Cas could hear something from that far away. 

They’d also taken the small one with them. Maybe they all went hunting together, but this didn’t feel like that. “Chuck, can you look on the town maps and see if there’s anything near where they’re staying?” Chuck got back to him maybe 10 minutes later and said there was nothing there, just Longs Peak. Maybe they found a lodge with people in it near there, or maybe it was something else. It felt like they left in a hurry, and he didn’t know why. 

“Pack up. We’re following ‘em . . . They aren’t coming back here,” Dean said a few minutes later. 

“How can you be so sure?” Gwen asked. 

“I’ve got a feeling they were spooked, and it wasn’t by us . . . whatever it is followed ‘em,” Dean answered before he went to starting packing up his gear. 

“So, you think there’s more than just the one,” James said. 

Dean grabbed his sleeping bag and started to roll it while he said, “There are 3. 2 adults, one kid . . . If my kid was in danger, I wouldn’t stay in a cave where I’d get penned in. I’d go somewhere I could defend with a good vantage point and lots of exits . . . that’s where they went . . . Even if the things that threatened my family were dead, I wouldn’t come back here . . . If I was found once, then I could be found again . . . These things are smart. They know how to stay hidden, and they haven’t done it by staying in the same place for decades.” 

Rufus pulled up the spikes for the tent Stephen was still in and grumbled “I say we let whatever chased ‘em out of here do our job for us. Why’re we chasin’ after ‘em? We gonna defend ‘em now? Bring ‘em back to the bunker, so they can sleep next to the werewolves and Amazons?” 

Dean exhaled a silent laugh and said, “No, we need to see whatever it was that scared something that’s as big as the trees outta their home . . . might be other humans out here hunting them, or it might be somethin’ else.” 

They had to be careful when they got to Longs Peak. Not a lot of places they could go to hide their arrival, so they had to park somewhere secure and trek over the mountains until they got to a neighboring peak. They had three ogres and whatever chased the ogres here to worry about. 

It took them a couple of days to get there, but he had Chuck keep track of the ogre’s position and try to figure out what else was out here with them. Whatever it was giving the computer a hard time, but something was there, and it was supernatural, which meant they needed to take out whatever it was too. 

Dean also had Chuck go back through the last couple of weeks to see if he could track the blinking dots back to their source. It wasn’t easy, because they kept appearing for a second or two and disappearing for a couple of minutes. Either the monsters knew how to jam their computer, or the computer was unfamiliar with them. The monsters couldn’t know about the computer, so it had to be the second, and that was a concern, because Cas knew every monster type that’d ever existed, so he’d programmed them all into the computer. If the computer didn’t know what they were, they had to be something new.

Dean and the others were camped out without a fire. It was cold up here. It was nearly October. At night they kept watch by using their thermal imaging equipment, and the werewolves slept, and then they’d change it up in the morning, and the werewolves kept guard during the day. The werewolves couldn’t smell anything out of the ordinary. Everything was quiet . . . too quiet . . . the kind of quiet that gnaws at your nerves, so everyone was on edge, and Cas showing up out of thin air the way he did didn’t help. Rufus almost shot him, which wouldn’t have hurt Cas, but it would’ve given away their position.

Cas let them know how to kill the ogres as soon as everyone had calmed back down. “Decapitation works, but won’t be easy, because the lore says their muscles are as strong as iron.” 

Dean scanned the mountain and said, “Think you could do a quick search and see what else is out here with us, Cas?” It felt like the tension was building, like a snake that was about to strike, so he didn’t think he needed to know how to kill the ogres anymore, because he thought they were about to die. He needed to know what was out here and get his team away if it was something they couldn’t handle. 

Cas disappeared and came back about half an hour later looking pretty grim. He didn’t even wait for Dean to ask what he found. Instead he flew all the hunters to a spot where they could watch. “What the fuck is that?” Dean asked after he saw something move a few feet and then blend back in with its surroundings, like nothing was there at all. After his eyes found that one, he was able to pick out more of the chameleon-like creatures surrounding the ogres on top of the mountain. There were no exits. Why were the things on the mountainside keeping the ogres there? Why not just go for the easy kill? Why toy with the ogres? “Cas, can you –“ 

Cas took off without him needing to finish his sentence and came back a few minutes later holding onto one of those chameleon monsters. Dean immediately went for his flare gun and shot the creature as soon as Cas let it go. It shrieked and howled in pain, but it didn’t die. He followed it up by throwing a knife into its heart. It didn’t die, but it did slow down a lot. With the monster focused on Rufus and the werewolves, Gwen snuck around behind it with her machete and took its head . . . Then it went down. 

“What the hell is goin’ on around here? Wendigos that don’t burn . . . we don’t have enough problems with those damn monsters . . . now we need to get close enough to set ‘em on fire and take their heads?” Rufus asked looking down at the corpse as it burnt to ash. 

Dean looked from the heap of embers back towards the mountain and said, “It’s a hybrid. Whatever it is, Crowley made it. He already made the Sucky-Amazon hybrids . . . wendigos wouldn’t follow Eve . . . the same as the ogres and Amazons wouldn’t . . . not her kind of monster.”

Dean watched what the other wendigo-hybrids did now that they’d heard one of them die. “They’re holding . . . somebody’s giving them orders, and they’re following them . . . Cas, go grab another one. Let’s see if we can get the job done without the fire.” 

This time Dean let Stephen and Rufus take a crack at it. Just beheading them didn’t work. It got back up and threw Stephen into a nearby tree. Rufus set the body on fire with a homemade flamethrower. It still moved as fast as a wendigo normally could and got a swipe in on Tom when he knocked Rufus out of its way at the last second. 

Not part changeling if fire doesn’t work. Not part vamp or the head would’ve worked. Dean picked up the head to have a look at it . . . _no tattoos, so it’s not part djinn. What do your teeth look like? … yuck . . . razor sharp, but not like a wendigo . . . I’ve seen something like them before . . . kind of looks like -_

The flaming monster came after Dean for the head, so he tossed the head to Gwen and stabbed it in the heart with his angel blade. Nothing happened except it threw Cas against a tree when he tried to intervene. _It wants its head back._ “Give it its head back, Gwen,” Dean shouted when it rounded on her. She threw it like a football, and the thing caught it and put it back on. _What the fuck? Is it part headless horseman? Is that a real thing?_

It was still on fire, so it started screaming as soon as its head was back on its neck. To shut it up, Dean stabbed it in the heart seconds before Rufus used his machete to cut off its head, and it stayed down. _Well, fuck. A whole army of these is gonna be a bitch to deal with._

“It’s part aswang . . . has the teeth of one . . . the fire is for the wendigo half, but the heart and the head . . . that’s how we killed that aswang . . . except I cut the head off first . . . not sure why the heart has to go first on these . . . maybe there’s something else mixed in . . . how the fuck did he get them to breed? Maybe he used the Amazons as surrogates to speed up the process? But how the hell is he getting somethin’ like that to follow orders and work as part of a team? They’re both loner monster-types,” Dean said talking mostly to himself again.

“Any ideas on why they haven’t just killed the ogres,” Stephen asked coming back over to stand with the rest of them. 

“Recruitment? They want the ogres on side? Or they want one of the ogres for breeding . . . both? Means there’ve gotta be demons around here somewhere,” Dean said still thinking out loud. 

“Well, are we gonna wait for ‘em to get their new recruits or take ‘em out now?” Rufus asked. 

No way was Crowley gonna get his hands on those ogres. Dean kinda wished he’d had Beth go for the flesh eating monsters tablet. All these monsters would be on it. At least now he was finally getting a chance to see how the new armies were shaping up. Blood-suckers, shifters and skinwalkers that got let out of Vegas, and any hybrids of those were all with Eve now that she’d gotten free from Crowley; according to Sam, the Vegas demons and weredemons would be with Meg; flesheaters and the rest of the demons not in Vegas were with Crowley; angels with Raphael; angels with Michael; and witches. 

They needed to put an end to Crowley and Eve as fast as possible. Who knew what other monster hybrids were out there or what other monster hybrids would be created in the near future. At least they could keep ogre hybrids from becoming a thing, cuz the last thing they needed were wendigos the size of ogres that might also be part aswang, and they needed to find out if any other ogres had gone missing in the last couple of weeks . . . couldn’t do much if it’d happened before Cas set up the computer . . . they’d have to prepare for it just in case. 

“James and Tom on sniper rifles . . . When I give the signal, I need you to start grazing the sides of ogres’ necks. I don’t think a direct hit will do anything if their muscles are as strong as iron, but a few knicks along the side might give us a weak spot to target, so we can get those heads off . . . Gwen and Stephen are comin’ with me and Cas to take out the ogres . . . Rufus see what you can do about the wendigo-hybrids and demons.” 

He’d set it up, now all he had to do was wait for it and . . . “Are you crazy? You want me to take them on myself? Maybe when I was your age, I –“ 

Dean started laughing and said, “Nah, I was thinkin’ you could come up with something better to call them than wendigo-wangs, cuz that’s all I’ve got. All you need to worry about is handling the demon situation.” 

Rufus grinned. “Wendigo-wangs . . . Think we should stick with that . . . Might need you to loan me your angel. All the demons should move towards you once they see what you’re trying to do to their prize bulls. I’ll have him help me set up a devil’s trap the size of the mountain and send him back to you.” 

That worked, so Dean said, “All right. We’ll go with that. Tom, whichever one of you is better on the rifle should stay on the ogres, and the other can keep track of the wendigo-wangs. I need someone to let me know if they’re getting too close, while we’re dealing with the ogres. We’ll light ‘em up with our flamethrowers, and whichever one is on wendigo-wang detail can take care of the hearts with the sniper rounds . . . Once the ogres are down and the wendigo-wangs are all torched, we’ll take the heads of them too, and whoever was sniping the ogres can help Rufus exorcise any demons you sniff out.”


	14. Listening at the Door

Sam sat and watched Dean and Beth arguing over the breakfast table. “I don’t want you to go,” Dean said for what was probably the 100th time in the last few weeks. 

Then Beth responded, “Well, I don’t want to stay, so I guess we’re at an impasse,” for probably the 100th time as well. 

“Look at you! You can’t just pretend like this isn’t happening anymore. I said until you start showing, and you started showing awhile ago!” That was true. She had. Sam hadn’t realized she pretended that she wasn’t pregnant. They only had about 12 weeks left, so she’d better start getting used to the idea soon. Sam waited to see what her response was to that. He found times like hugely entertaining. Everyone else in the camp tended to back out of the room when one of these disagreements happened. He liked watching his brother get put on the spot.

“You also said I could help take care of Crowley. If –“ 

“First thing I said overrules that. You think I don’t know you pushed to take down Vegas when we did, so you could beat the clock? That means I know you know the first thing I said is what you agreed to and you always keep your promises . . . unless you want to start breaking them now.” If that’s the main reason Beth came for Sam when she did, then Sam thought that was hilarious. 

Beth looked down for a second, like she was trying to remember something before she smiled and said, “I never –“ 

“Doesn’t matter if you didn’t say it. It was implied.” Dean was changing the rules on her . . . Beth implied things all the time and then did something Dean never expected and 90% of the time Dean liked that she did that. 

“I’ll just –“ 

“No . . . the Air Wolves are off limits.” 

“I think they’ll listen to me, because I’ll be the one that’s here.” 

Dean paused, like he wasn’t sure and then looked confused before he said; “Now you’re just thinking things to piss me off. You’re not taking a boat, and you’re not having our kid in the middle of the ocean.” 

Beth smirked before saying, “Air wolves or Cas it is. Glad we could agree on that.” 

Dean leaned forward and said, “We didn’t agree anything unless it’s that you’re staying here!” 

After that, Beth decided to block Dean from what she was thinking, smiled, and then said, “Okay . . . I’ll stay here.” Sam knew she was blocking Dean, because Dean got a frustrated look on his face that he got every time she did that. 

“And do what? I know you’re not going to drop it. Whatever you’ve got planned . . . no, you’re not summoning him here so you and Sam can hold onto him while we do the salt and burn.” 

If that’s what she was planning, then Sam was going to chime in on it, because he wanted to be a part of this hunt too. “That’s not a bad idea. Either way he dies . . . if his bones aren’t there to salt and burn, than Beth can kill him in person with her angel blade. Win -“ 

Dean cut him off. “Yeah? What happens when one of his followers decides to track him and half his army shows up to get him out of the trap?” That was a good point. 

Beth took back her place in the argument. “We’re cloaked from anything that doesn’t know the password, so nothing can track us here . . . and you’re both wrong anyway . . . even if summoning is involved. I’m pretty sure Sam knows quite a few demons by their real name . . . maybe even Meg . . . we could start . . . ” Beth kept talking about it, while she got up to wash her plate. She’d already made her decision and was excited about it, but she wasn’t going to come right out and tell them what it was until one of them asked. 

It worked for Sam, because he was intrigued. Dean wasn’t in the right mood for it to work, so Dean wasn’t listening to her at all. “You really trust Sam to have your back on this? What about how he is with the Croats? He still doesn’t –“ 

Beth cut him off to say, “Yeah, I do.” _How’d I get pulled into this?_

“How the hell is he supposed to have your back after you shot him?” _Uhh . . . I’m not touching that one._

Beth turned around to look at Dean, appraised him for a couple of seconds and said, “You’re just pissed off, because I have a new hunting partner.” _New hunting partner? Me? Huh._

Dean was about to lose his cool, because he glared up at Beth and said a little too quietly, “You lost that fair and square. You can’t –“ 

“Yes, I can, because I let you win.” 

Dean stood up and looked down at her while he shouted, “The only reason you and Sam go do shit together all the time is because neither one of you can do anything anymore. He’s not your damn partner. I am.” 

Beth narrowed her eyes and said, “And yet where have you been, because I’ve barely seen you, and if Sam and I really couldn’t do anything anymore, then how is it we do shit together all the time?” She didn’t let Dean answer before she quickly added, “Do you know why Sam and I have been going on hunts around the area the last few weeks? One, we are under constant observation, because there is nothing for those people out there to do, so they spend their time watching us and –“ 

Dean cut her off and started yelling like a drill sergeant, “You’re a liability . . . You’re done. You’re on the bench. You’re not summoning Crowley! You’re not going out with Sam alone anymore! You’re staying here in the bunker if I have to lock you in the cell downstairs until you have this kid, and I am the one with authority around here to do it.” Things had taken a turn with Dean. Dean wasn’t just bantering the way he usually did. He was bullying her and expecting her to cow down to him. Dean was acting a lot like their Dad. 

Beth froze for a couple of seconds, and it looked like she was a million miles away before she took a step away from Dean and said in a detatched voice, “Just because you have the authority to do it, doesn’t make it right. If you win today, so be it, but know that you will ultimately fail, because you will never be my master,” before she walked out. _What the hell was that?_

As soon as she was gone, Dean picked up one of the chairs and threw it across the room with one hand before he went to the back counter, propped himself up on it using his hands, and hung his head. “What –“ 

Dean didn’t let Sam finish the question. “I just made her . . . Go check on her . . . Stay with her if she goes.”

_Yeah, maybe I can diffuse this. Should’ve done it before it came to that, but I wasn’t expecting things to go the way they did. I never saw him talk to her like that before . . . she wasn’t wrong. The people around here treat both of us like lepers, and it’s something Dean should be taking seriously. Wisconsin was only 2 months ago. Spent all last night trying to get her to stop crying, because someone out there told her it was best if she didn’t teach science anymore and had enough people backing them to enforce it, and then somebody else told her she wasn’t needed for mini-hunter training or hunter training. Dean should’ve been the one she cried to, but he didn’t get back until a couple of hours ago. He uses any excuse he can to get out of here and takes all the hunters with him . . . even the new ones that don’t have any experience . . . of course Beth’s gonna want to hunt. She’s feeling left out. And it’s not like we’ve run into any trouble on the hunts we’ve done. She could’ve done them herself, but she brought me along as an excuse to get me out of here . . . and what about me? If she’s stuck here, does that mean I have to be stuck here too?_

Finding her was easier said than done. She wasn’t in she and Dean’s room. He was limited in his movements and getting that far had been hard enough. _Where would she go? Did Gabriel come get her? No, Gabriel would’ve had to knock to get in here._ Sam checked all the archive rooms and libraries next. _Nope._ Maybe he should go ask Dean. Dean always knew where she was. 

Sam went back to the kitchen, and Dean wasn’t there. _Garage? Nope._ Neither one of them were in there. Sam was running out of ideas. If she wasn’t upstairs or on the main floor or the garage, maybe she was downstairs. She liked the shooting range. Sam slowly made his way down there and stopped outside the shooting range door when he heard Dean’s voice. 

Sam glanced around the corner. They were sitting next to the barrier in the corner. Beth was turned away from Dean and resting her head against the wall in a pose that pretty much said, ‘Leave me alone. I want to be by myself.’ 

Neither one of them had noticed him, so he moved back around the side of the door to see if he could hear what they said. He kind of thought it was his right as the younger brother to eavesdrop on what happened with his older brother. He used to do it all the time when they were growing up, and it always annoyed Dean to no end. He didn’t even care that he hadn’t done it since he was 10 or 11. He wanted to see how this played out. 

“Beth, I didn’t mean –“ 

“You always say you don’t mean it, but you keep doing it, and I don’t think you’ll ever stop. Save it for the next time.” _Ouch._ Dean decided to try again, and Beth cut him off again mid-sentence to say, “I think you really do mean it, and I’ll never be able to change your mind. I wish that someone had even a little faith in me that couldn’t be shaken . . . I’ve never had that. I’ve always been underestimated, but it’s worse when it comes from you.” _Yeah, well . . . she’ll be waiting forever if she expects Dean to change on that one. He’s a protector. That’s who he is._

Dean started to say he did have faith in her, and Beth abruptly shot it down by saying, “You’ve never had faith in me. Never. Not to decide what’s best for me . . . I was alive and completely alone for a long time before I met you, and I’m still here. I’m perfectly able to take care of myself even if it’s not in a way you like. I don’t let fear rule me. I don’t shy away from things. I’ll never be some passive -” 

Dean finally had enough and said, “Don’t you think I know that? You’ve been saying it since the day we met. The way you see it, you’re the driver, and I get to navigate as long as you think it’s the way you should go, but here’s the thing. You knew I was used to being behind the wheel, and you got in the car anyway.” 

There was a pause, and Dean sighed before he said, “And I guess I knew what I was signing on for too, but sometimes I let the thought of something happening to you get to me, so I say and do shit I don’t mean to try and take the wheel back . . . I know that wherever you’re going, that’s where I’m going if you die, so it’s not even that I’m afraid that I’ll lose you anymore. I don’t want you to get ripped apart and die bloody. When you die, I want to be there. I don’t want you to go out alone.” 

Sam almost looked around the corner to make sure that was really Dean, because it’d been really honest and sentimental. Dean really put himself out there on that one. There was silence and then Dean said, “Come on . . . You have to know I don’t think that . . . No, you’re not just some vessel I’m keeping around for . . . stop. Look at me . . . All right don’t look at me. Do I want this kid? Yeah, I do, but that isn’t why I said what I said. Right now our kid is the reason you might not make it out of something alive, because it puts you at a disadvantage.” This is where their connection got weird. Half the time it made Dean look crazy, because he had to talk out loud, and she didn’t, and Dean had gotten so used to it that he didn’t even have a problem going back and forth from listening to her thoughts to listening to what she actually said out loud.

Beth didn’t say anything, and she must not have thought anything either, because Dean said, “You wanna tell me what it was?” 

Beth was quiet for a few seconds before she said, “There’s nothing to tell.” 

There was silence for about half a minute before Dean tried again. “I know you weren’t talking to me back there. I made you have a flashback.” _That’s what that was?_

“So what? It is what it is. I don’t want to talk about it.” Dean ignored her refusal and attempted to get her to open up again, so she said, “Why is it I always have to tell you what happened to me? I never once asked you what happened in Hell.” 

_Is what she went through up there anything like what Dean went through in Hell?_ Sam remembered Dean saying that Cas said she should’ve been a demon, but he thought that was an exaggeration. 

Sam’s attention was drawn back to the room when Dean started talking again. “I didn’t have anyone that would understand it.” 

Beth wasn’t giving him an inch though. “That wouldn’t have made a difference, and you know it.” 

Dean took a deep breath and said, “A lot of mine mix together . . . mine might go from when he was in the middle of peeling my skin off to when he cut my chest open and pulled my ribs apart and started pullin’ stuff out of me . . . and then he’d make me watch other demons eat it and then it might flash to him makin’ me watch Sammy be the one that had his skin peeled off and then it almost always goes to when I used to rip and slice my victims apart . . . and it mixes the two . . . like I can see it like it’s me that’s being carved up and at the same time, I can see me doin’ the same to someone else . . . so I don’t know what it’s like to have a flashback of a specific day the way you do, and a lot of mine is about what I did . . . but I do know what it’s like to have a flashback . . . and I never talked about . . . would’ve made it worse . . . the only thing that ever made any of it better . . . was if I was awake . . . I’d call you before or after a hunt or look for you in the next room if you were there . . . and if it was a nightmare . . . it was wakin’ up next to you . . . It reminded me I wasn’t still there. I was with you, and I got out . . . It grounded me . . . But you aren’t me. You have to talk through things. Something like this with you probably means there’s a leak in the damn holding back the rest of the stuff you don’t want to remember . . . if you wanna seal the crack and not have the damn break, you need to tell me.” 

_Who the hell is that?_ Sam peeked around the corner after Dean was done. Beth was sitting cross-legged and facing Dean even if she was looking down and not at Dean, so Dean must’ve really said that, because it seemed to have worked. Sam went back to his hiding spot thinking that he would be checking to see if Dean was wearing that shifter amulet later.

Nobody said anything in the other room for at least a minute, and when they did, it was Beth. “I’d known for a long time that Raphael was the angel that had me locked up . . . When I was . . . I’m guessing around 20, I finally found where his office was. I wanted some answers, so I went in to investigate while he had a meeting with Michael. I didn’t make it out in time . . . He didn’t catch me. One of his underlings did. They brought in an expert . . . Kushiel . . . He’s an angel of punishment.” 

She was quiet again for another 30 seconds before she said, “He, uh . . . He gouged out my eyes . . . for looking in the office of an archangel . . . and uh . . . hung me upside down . . . to disorient me more, because I couldn’t see . . . And then he burned me . . . over and over everywhere from head to toe. I don’t know what he used . . . It wasn’t a firepoker, like it was with the guards sometimes, and it wasn’t just fire . . . It clung to me, like a liquid fire that wouldn’t go out . . . like lava? When he was done with that, he whipped me somehow everywhere at once . . . I don’t know how . . . I just know it was like the fire dug into me more, like it was a whip of fire that dug deeper than the lava . . . and then he left me hanging there while the lava consumed me, but just like everything else, it eventually stopped, because the fire went out . . . You never got the chance to find out, but if you wait long enough, your soul will heal by itself . . . That’s what makes the scars . . . but this time, and I know it happened other times too . . . different things were done, but –

“Don’t go diggin’ for things, Beth, just tell me about this time.”

She took a deep breath and followed Dean’s advice. “It didn’t heal the way I was supposed to heal . . . it was like a festering wound that wouldn’t go away . . . usually it took me weeks to get back up again, but this time it was more like months before I could start to see again . . . everything was foggy. I couldn’t see very well, but I could see some, and I knew parts of me were loose and falling off even months later . . . I knew something was really wrong . . . It’s when I had to learn how to . . . I guess you’d call it meditation, but it was more like focusing all of my inner energy into holding on to everything I had left, so I didn’t lose anymore. They knew I could see again . . . For the first time in probably 12 or 13 years, I couldn’t block them from knowing what I was thinking with all of my attention on holding myself together . . . So they knew when to cut me down . . . Before they did, they cut the bottoms of my feet and broke my ankles, so I couldn’t just break out again any time soon, but that didn’t matter, because I was still trying to stabilize everything else . . . didn’t even register when I got up and walked to my escape hatch . . . I couldn’t bellycrawl to it, because I was afraid I’d lose more of me if more of me was dragged along the floor, and then when I was hidden in my tunnel, I stayed there until I was sure I could make it out the other side in tact with what I had left. It took a while.” 

So much for spending an eternity in Heaven being a good thing . . . knowing those angels worked just behind the scenes of everyone’s personal Heaven didn’t sound appealing. Maybe Dean had the right idea about going on an angel-killing spree in Heaven. Good humans deserved to have a place to go for living good lives without having to deal with evil angels.

Dean was quiet. Sam didn’t need to see or hear Dean to know what Dean was thinking. Dean said something a minute later, but Sam couldn’t hear, so he peeked around the corner again. Dean was sitting cross-legged and had her pulled into his lap, so he could cradle her in his arms while she was curled up against him and had the side of her head resting against Dean’s chest. Dean had his forehead resting on the top of her head and said something else, and Beth shook her head. “No . . . don’t . . . I don’t want you to feel like . . . I shouldn’t have said anything . . . I’m sorr-“ 

Dean cut her off by putting his hand tenderly on the other side of her head to hold her closer while he said something else. “But I am sorry. It’s just a memory. It doesn’t matter . . . I –“

Dean stopped her again, and she teared up while she said, “No . . . it’s not your fault. It was just the final straw . . . it’s everything else –“ 

Dean said something else, and she answered,“Because I can’t do this . . . I can’t escape my prison, because I am my prison . . . I’m going to be terrible at it, and I don’t want you to have to do this alone, but I’m afraid that you will . . . and part of me thinks it’d be better if you were –“ 

Dean interrupted her again before she shook her head. “No. You should know by now that I’ll never leave you . . . I guess unless you want me to –“ 

Dean whispered something, so she said, “Okay. I won’t. That’s not what I meant anyway . . . you’re the only way our kid is ever going to be okay. I am not mother material . . . it’s all I think about. It’s why I can’t just sit the bench –“ Dean said something else, and Beth nodded, but it looked like she was done talking, because more silent tears were streaming down her face while Dean kept talking to her and wrapped her up tighter in his arms. 

At this point Sam thought he’d gone way past intruding, so he turned to leave. He hadn’t been able to not watch. It wasn’t just that he was seeing a different side to Dean, or Beth for that matter. It was the tenderness and real love and openness and intimacy that he’d witnessed that had captured him. He’d never in his life seen something like what his brother and Beth had when they thought they were alone. 

He had no idea how Dean learned to be like that, because they hadn’t had any kind of example like that to follow growing up. All couples fight, but it was the way Dean handled it after that . . . She hadn’t made it easy on him at first, but Dean had persisted. He’d had to admit the real reason he’d been angry was because he had a real fear that she would die violently and alone, and then Dean told her about Hell, so she would tell him what her flashback was, because Dean understood how she was different than him and would need to get it out . . . and after she told Dean what it was, Dean . . . the way he held her . . . Dean was heartbroken by it and devastated that he was the one to make her remember it and wanted to comfort her, and she’d wanted Dean to know it’d been everything else that lead up to her remembering, not just what Dean had said in the kitchen that had caused it, and Dean had wanted to know what she meant, so she told him her fears about becoming a Mom, and Dean had been gentle and was back there reassuring her right now. 

Sam had loved Jess. He’d been planning to propose, but there was a lot that he never told Jess about his life. That openness wasn’t there . . . that closeness was missing. He’d told Dean before that he would trade places with Jess if he had the chance, and he’d meant it, but he wondered if maybe he would’ve felt like he couldn’t be separated from Jess when she died if he’d had with her what Dean had with Beth. 

It made Sam wonder if that was ever going to be in the cards for him. He didn’t deserve to have something like that, but . . . it looked like he’d found a role model he could look up to if he was ever in another relationship again, because he’d finally seen what the real deal was from his brother. 

He couldn’t believe he’d spent so much time trying to destroy something like that. What Dean had with Beth . . . it was rare . . . and it wasn’t because of their connection . . . maybe it was because they were soul mates, but that didn’t matter. It was something that Sam thought needed to be protected . . . maybe at all costs, and he would do that for them and with them . . . without them knowing, because Dean would probably call him a chick if he said any of that to him . . . and be incredibly pissed if he knew Sam had been eavesdropping on any of it.


	15. Mother to Mother

“Why can’t we just do the practice drill on Meg instead of this?” 

Dean shook his head and answered, “We need to take care this first.” 

I didn’t want to think about it or take care of anything first. I just wanted to do a job . . . my job, any job . . . anything other than this . . . But Dean wasn’t going to let this go, so I said, “All right, but I’m doing it alone.” _Damn. He seems more okay with that than I thought he would._

Dean headed for the door saying, “I”ll go talk to Sam about what we came up with and see if we can find that tape you were talkin’ about,” before he shut the door behind him, leaving me alone with Pamela. 

“You wanna fill me in on what’s goin’ on? Kind of like that you’ve always blocked me. Means we can do this the normal way and be friends without me pickin’ up on all the ways you really think I’m a bitch,” Pamela said to get the ball rolling. It made me smile. I felt really nervous about this. Maybe I could just stay in here and talk to her about other things and Dean would never know I didn’t do what he wanted. No, he’d find out eventually. 

“You’ll find out soon enough. Something tells me you’ll pick up on it after you contact her. If you want to offer advice after . . . feel free . . . don’t waste your time if Rachel’s there first. We’ll do this another time if she’s there . . . And you’re not a bitch . . . hasn’t crossed my mind once.” It hadn’t. If anything I wished I were as cool as her. I bet she would’ve never had the problem I did. 

Pamela gave me a smile and said, “Well, all right. Let’s get this show on the road,” before she did her thing.

The one time I needed Rachel, and she was nowhere to be found. _Figures. She’s a sucky identical twin soul._ As soon as Mary came through, she asked, “Where’s Dean? Is everything all right?” 

_Nice one Beth. Make her think her son’s in danger._ “Uh, yeah . . . he’s fine. He and Sam are going over plans to deal with Crowley.” 

She smiled and said, “Sam’s with him? I haven’t been able to see either one of them for a while now.” 

I didn’t think about my answer before I spoke, and I really should have. “Yeah, Sam’s been with us ever since I shot him and made him go into detox. He’s mostly like the old Sam now. Maybe you can’t see him, because we’re in a bunker that’s heavily protected.” _It doesn’t look like I should’ve told her that I shot her son. You know what? I will not apologize to any Winchester for that. What the hell did she expect me to do? Throw her son an evil ticker tape parade for all of his evil accomplishments?_ She wanted to know what I meant, so I played dumb on her actually wanting to know about me shooting Sam and told her about the bunker and the Men of Letters. 

“So, these Men of Letters . . . they were the recorders of supernatural events, but they didn’t fight as a general rule. They left the real fighting to the hunters?” I nodded, and she said, “Well, then that’s why were wiped out. You can’t dabble in the supernatural without being able to fight.” 

_Ehhh, it’s not that simple._ “They were pretty good at spells. That’s how Henry went into the future. He knew a spell that tapped into the power of his soul and used that to do it . . . They were good enough to bring down the Grand Coven. They were just wiped out by a Knight of Hell because she wanted a key to this place. Knight’s of Hell are -” 

“I know what a Knight of Hell is.” _Hm. The Campbells really seemed to know a lot above their pay grade._

“How much lore was in your family library on angels? There were some sigils used on our friend that I think came from there, and I don’t know how you guys had them, because the –“ 

I don’t think she liked me very much, because she interrupted me again. “So, is that why you contacted me? To give me an update and ask me hunting questions?” 

_I should just let her go back to Heaven and be done with it._ “Uh, yep . . . pretty much that . . . Dean wanted me to talk to you about something else, but it can wait.” _Why do I always do that? Learn when to shut your fucking mouth, Beth._

Now she wanted to know what Dean thought was so important that his dumbass emissary was sent in to talk to her. _Uhh . . . quick. Come up with something . . . anything . . . wait. You can’t lie to her. She’ll find out eventually . . . Ohh, I’d rather deal with 10 hellhounds than do this . . . where’s Cerebus when you need him? … Just say it and let go of Pamela’s hands . . . Yeah? You think telling her she’s going to have a grandchild and then hanging up on her is a good idea? ... Probably not._

I looked down and took a long, slow breath before I rushed out, “No. You’re going to be a grandmother in about 3 months. I’m not adjusting to it very well. Dean wants me to talk to you about it . . . He thinks you can help . . . cuz you were a Mom and all.”

She didn’t say anything, so I looked up at her. She was working through what I’d said and didn’t respond the way I thought she would. “I don’t think . . . why isn’t he having you talk to your own mother?” _What mother? You should know that shouldn’t you?_

“How much has John told you about me?” _More than you want to let on from what I can tell. Can I talk to him?_ “He’s not around is he? Maybe –“ 

“I don’t think John’s the best person . . . What about your own father? He –“ 

There was a knock at the door and Dean opened it. “Just found that film. We’re gonna watch it . . . everything all right in here?” _Yeah, now I know that I want my Dad._ I started blocking Dean as soon as he came in the room, so he didn’t hear that. 

Uh, yeah . . . just wrapping things up.” Dean gave me an uncertain look, but nodded and left. _Surprised he didn’t stick around, so he could talk to her._

When I looked back at Mary, she said, “You were about to tell me why you couldn’t talk to your parents?” _Was I? Uhh . . . nope. Pretty sure I wasn’t._

“I was raised by the archangel Gabriel. He’s busy, but I’ll see if I can go talk him. Thanks for all your help. Maybe next time you can talk to Sam, but I wouldn’t count on it. He tends to dodge situations that make him feel more ashamed of what he did, and I suspect talking to you would qualify as one of those, but I’m sure he’ll be able to talk to you eventually.” 

She glanced at the door and then back at me before she said, “Wait. I haven’t done anything to help yet.” _That’s not necessarily true._

“You did. Now I know I need to talk to my Dad.” 

She sat back a little and said, “Your Dad, meaning the archangel, Gabriel?” I nodded, so she said, “Archangels aren’t known for being a good support network. I assume that’s why Dean wanted you to talk to me.” 

_My Dad is the best._ “Gabriel is the best Dad I could’ve ever had. I’m sure -” 

“You said you weren’t adjusting to it very well . . . why not?” _Now you want me to tell you things I’ve never told anyone else? Have a Mary and Beth heart to heart? Awesome. Thanks for this, Dean._

“I like being a hunter. It’s what I want to do, and I’m not going to give it up. I don’t have any qualms with being violent. The alphas in Vegas wanted me to kill them painfully and slowly as punishment for the way they’d let their monster children down. They were going to die either way, and they had a right to die the way they wanted after what they’d been through, so I obliged by leaving a silver knife in their hearts and cutting their heads off with a second silver knife . . . it was a brutal kind of kindness . . . I had to show the same kind of mercy to a boy named Corey. An aswang sucked out almost all of his organs. She gave him an elixir and kept him awake through all of it . . . He wouldn’t have survived. He was in pain, and he wanted to die, so I killed him too . . . I executed every last one of the men running that wendigo farm you sent us to in North Dakota. I killed men for doing similar heinous crimes before that. I kill monsters on a pretty regular basis. It takes a certain kind of detachment to be able to carry out any of those things. That detachment is a specialty of mine . . . I’m fractured . . . Now, maybe that can be fixed in time, but for right now, it means that I’m splintered into pieces. It’s why I can tap into the power of my soul without knowing that’s what I’m doing . . . Parts of me are in tune with myself without other parts of me being aware of it, and because of that I can’t access certain emotions a mother has to be able to give her child . . . That is a different part of me . . . I can feel it the way a person can feel a fire on the other side of the door, because it’s hot to the touch, so I know it’s there, but the door is locked, so I can’t see it, and I can’t hear it or confirm that it exists. I’m closed off, and I know how damaging that is. I grew up without a mother. The fake one Gabriel conjured up never really did anything. She was mostly background noise, so when Gabriel figured out that having her around was doing more harm than good, he had her leave when I was almost 5, and I never missed her. I’m afraid that I’m going to be just like her even though she wasn’t real, and my child is going to grow up without a mother that’s standing right there.”

She took a deep breath and said, “Have you talked to Dean about it? What does he say?” 

I mirrored her sigh and answered, “Some of it, but not all of it. He usually says that I got all of the good things after they took Rachel from me, so I’ll be able to give it what it needs without knowing I can . . . and that I can teach it how make a pie and how to read and about science and how to play practical jokes and how to fight with an angel blade, and I think we’ve decided I’ll teach the crossbow and sniper rifle, and Dean will do the handgun and knives, and we’ll both teach getting around locks and security systems and how to set up explosives when it gets old enough. He’ll teach sparring, and I’ll teach how to get out of a fight without having to get close enough for hand-to-hand fighting, and he’ll teach the mechanical things and electronics and we’ll both introduce it to movies and board games and chess, and he’ll teach poker, and I’ll teach other card games.” 

She smiled before she said, “So, you’ll do it together?” 

I nodded. “Yeah, he said he’ll show me what to do . . . He already did all of it with Sam, so he has a good idea of what it takes . . . I told him I’ll probably break our child before the first week is up, and he said that wouldn’t happen.” 

“You know . . . the things your worried about . . . they’re kind of the things all new Mom’s worry about . . . maybe not being a hunter or how your soul will affect things, but the being worried about whether you’ll break the baby or be a good example for it or wanting to be better than your own parents or even not knowing what to do when it arrives . . . that’s all normal. It mean’s you’ll be a good Mom if you’re worried about it, because it means you care enough to worry . . . And Dean might think he knows what he’s doing, because John let him raise Sam, and maybe that gave him a good head start on what it takes to be a father, but nobody is prepared for their first child . . . I wasn’t. It’s something you learn as you go along and being a hunter doesn’t change that . . . and now that the way the world is the way it is . . . parents are going to have to be a lot more like you and Dean if they want their kids to be safe . . . if you keep your baby safe, then the rest will come . . .Tell me what it was like growing up with Gabriel.” 

_I don’t understand why, but okay._ “One of my earliest memories is of him taking me to see Bambi in the movie theater when it was out on re-release. I don’t even know if I was quite two yet. I think it might’ve been out in the real world, because we had to leave halfway through. If it’d been his illusion of real life, that wouldn’t have happened. It was the scene when Bambi is trying to walk on ice. I kept talking over it and laughing and clapping, because I thought it was the funniest thing ever . . . I was ruining it for the other people and their well behaved children, so we left, and he took me to go get ice cream and bought me stuffed animals of Bambi, Flower, and Thumper and a story book of Bambi that we could read at bedtime together . . . Maybe he made them out of thin air and didn’t buy them, but I remember getting them . . . And he used to sing me to sleep . . . He played the acoustic guitar . . . and when I’d learn something new, he’d get excited about it . . . Didn’t matter if it was how to tie my shoe or how to throw a ball, he’d throw a party for just the two of us, and I got to have a cake with whatever the achievement was written on it, and he used to play games with me, and we’d watch movies together. In the winter, he used to have snowball fights with me and help me create snow tunnels. We built snowmen together . . . if I didn’t ask him to do it with me, he’d make them melt or explode or blow over, so I’d have to go ask him for help to make a new one . . . He taught me how to skate and ride a bike. We went to college football games on Saturdays, and if we were near a city when the Bears were playing, we went to those on Sundays. When we lived near Chicago, we went to the every home game, and in the summer we went to see the Cubs in Wrigley Field. He took me to museums and taught me how to swim and how to drive. Every Halloween he made whatever I wanted my costume to be with me. He could’ve snapped is fingers and made them perfect, but I think it was better making them together the way we did. He never got me what I wanted for birthdays and Christmas . . . sometimes the things I got were better than what I wanted and sometimes they worse . . . he did it because he said that’s the way life is . . . He made me feel important, like my opinion mattered when he’d read through his court cases with me and asked me what I thought about the clients . . . If I ever had a problem, he’d take care of it no matter what it was . . . He was my Dad.”

“All of that felt real for you?” 

“As real as the last 3 ½ years have felt.” 

She sat back and slumped a little before she said, “I would’ve liked to have been able to do even one of those things with my boys . . . It sounds like you have a pretty good example to go by . . . even if it was an archangel that shouldn’t have been good at doing any of those things.” That was a good point. Gabriel hadn’t been built to be a Dad. The same way I didn’t think I was built to be a Mom, but Gabriel still found a way to make me feel like I was his kid who was loved. 

She smiled while I mulled that one over. “Any idea if it’s a boy or a girl?” 

I shook my head. “No, Cas and Gabriel know, but Gabriel doesn’t want to spoil the surprise, so neither one of them are saying . . . Dean asked Cas to be the godfather . . . he told Cas he had to protect our kid and bring it lots of presents every couple of months.” She smiled again and asked what Sam thought about it. “He gives me a hard time when I do things I shouldn’t do, but he’s gotten better about it. I think he’s been researching it in his spare time, so he can help out when the time comes. I think he’s going to take it pretty seriously and will tell Dean and I everything we’re doing wrong.” I had no idea then how right I was on that one.


	16. The Cure

“You don’t have to be here for –“ Sam started to say before Dean cut him off. 

“Yeah, I do. I wanna see if it works . . . just cough up Meg’s real name, so we can get this started.” Sam grumbled about how they didn’t need to do a trial run. This should be Crowley. He was the bigger threat. 

It fell on deaf ears, so Sam said, “Try Eisheth.” 

Beth paused in going over her summoning ingredients to look up at him. “Wow. You guys exorcised demon royalty pretty early on.” _How does she know stuff like that off the top of her head?_

It’d taken him months to find that out after he tricked Meg into telling him. Dean grinned at Sam’s expression. Dean always did that when Beth did something that surprised Sam, and Sam felt the need to explain to Dean what Beth had meant before she had a chance to do it. “Yeah, Princess of the Qliphoth . . . Woman of Whoredom . . . They got it wrong when they said she eats the souls of the damned. Cerebus is the only one in Hell that has the kind of power to devour a soul. She used to be human . . . that’s what we need, right?” 

He quickly wished he’d edited part of his history lesson as Dean laughed and said, “So, it wasn’t just any chick you had ridin’ around inside of you for a week? It was the Woman of Whoredom . . . hey, you think –“ Sam cut Dean off by telling Beth to get on with it. 

Sam wasn’t looking forward to this for the same reason he hated living around Kevin. Meg had helped him run his entire operation, so she knew even more than Kevin did. Sam didn’t want Dean to hear about any of that, and that’s exactly what would happen once Meg figured out why she was here. _If you hadn’t done all those evil things, then you wouldn’t have to worry about it, would you?_

He heard that almost smokey voice he knew all too well say, “Hello, Sam,” before Beth had even stood up from her place on the ground. _Don’t talk to her, and you’ll be fine. Just go do your –_

He was cut off from his thoughts when Meg said, “So is that it? After all we’ve been through together . . . I see you wasted no time in running straight back to Dean,” before she looked at Dean. “Hello Dean . . . Oh, the fun we could’ve had with you . . . didn’t even have a chance to do half the things we planned . . . You were the one that was going to torture her for information after one of us possessed you to find her . . . You almost gave us everything we wanted on a silver platter.” 

Sam glanced at Dean. Dean’s easygoing nature from a few minutes ago had evaporated, but he wasn’t engaging, which was unusual for Dean. _Ignore it. If you want this over with sooner rather than later, get going._ Sam turned to go do his confession. “Make sure it’s for all of it Sam,” Dean directed at his back. _This is why I didn’t want you here . . . or try this out on Meg._

Sam went to a quiet corner next to the side door where there was a partition, so nobody could see him. _So, uh . . . I guess you really can hear what I’m thinking if you can hear what Beth thinks . . . She’s just the only one you answer, right? I’m not sure where to start. Maybe –_

“Out loud, Sam.” Sam turned to look at Dean who was standing behind him. He didn’t want to say any of these things to Dean. 

“Dean, I don’t want –“ 

“I ain’t your damn priest. I’m makin’ sure you do it right . . . If you really want to face up to it, it’s gotta be out loud . . . That’s a confession. I’m goin’ out to the car . . . Beth’ll find me when you’re done.” Dean walked out the side door of the church, and Sam wasn’t sure how wise that was. They’d had to find a church outside the camp because of the wards Gabriel had put up on the walls. There could be Croats out there. _You’re stalling again._ Right. If he heard gunshots, he’d know Dean needed help. 

Sam turned back around to face the corner. “Guess I should start with what I tried to do to you . . . I tried to kill you . . . I didn’t know that’s what I’d have to do until Dean told me the night before we killed Lucifer, but I knew as soon as Dean told me. I know my brother, and I know when he’s lying, so I knew he wasn’t lying to me or misguided . . . It made sense. If anything I saw it as even more of an opportunity to fix things. I was prideful and thought I could do a better job than you. I didn’t think about the lives I was destroying. Not just lives, souls too. I knew what would happen to the ones that got the Croatoan virus. I didn’t care. I wouldn’t have brought them back. I couldn’t have. They wouldn’t have existed anymore. I should go back though . . . there’s too much for me to say, and I’ll miss something if I don’t. I should start by saying, I’m sorry for all of that I just said I did, and I’m sorry I ever listened to Ruby and for drinking demon blood to begin with and for not listening to Dean and for having to prove I was right and for doing what I did in that hotel to Dean and Beth . . . I was jealous and envious and prideful again. Pride seems to be a big one with me . . . “ 

Sam kept going and didn’t stop until he got it all out. His voice was starting to go hoarse. He looked at his watch. 4 hours. That’s how long it took to say everything he’d done wrong in just a few years. Was it enough? He’d done so much wrong that it felt like that’s all he’d ever done. He’d probably missed more than a few things. It probably wasn’t enough. 

He spent another half hour racking his brain to think of more things he’d done wrong and came up with a few, like not telling Jess anything about the supernatural and not demon-proofing their home together. He knew there was more, but that was the best he could do. They’d find out if that was enough if this worked. 

Sam decided to save Beth the trouble and went to go get Dean himself. He knocked on the roof and saw Dean lying down on the front seat with his arms crossed over his forehead. “I’m done.” 

Dean looked at his watch. “You sure you’re done?” 

Sam nodded. “I think so.” Dean got up, opened the door, and brushed past him on their way back into the church. This Meg thing had definitely set things back between he and Dean.

When they got back into main chapel with Meg and Beth, Sam wasn’t expecting to see what he saw. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t Beth and Meg playing poker across the devil’s trap from one another using a wad of real cash. Whatever Dean’s expression was, Sam couldn’t see it, because he was behind Dean, but as soon as Beth saw Dean, she said, “It’s like Monopoly money now, so it doesn’t matter if she wins any.” 

Dean bent down and picked up the cash in front of Beth, so he could start counting it. “Where the hell did you have this stashed?” Beth looked at her cards with a coy smile and shrugged before she played her hand and won. Sam wondered how much she’d stashed away over the years. He knew that’s how they got the funding to start up their camp right after the outbreak. Dean said it had been around 30,000. Sam hadn’t thought that was right, but maybe it was. She did gamble a lot on football games . . . according to Adam. Sam never saw her do it. Sam wondered if she’d ever thought of putting a down payment on a house. Probably not, but it’s what he would’ve done if he’d ever had that much money at one time. _You’re stalling again._

As soon as Beth cleared the pot, she looked at Meg and said, “Just remember what I told you.” 

Meg got up to go sit in the chair and said, “Might sting a bit . . . sweet of you to care,” before she leveled her eyes on Sam and added, “Think I picked the wrong brother to back . . . If this works on me, it’ll work on that wannabe on the throne . . . getting rid of him is the only thing I care about . . . Make sure you get this right.” _She seems like a willing participant. Did Beth really talk Meg into being our guinea pig?_

Beth handed Sam the syringe, and he looked down at it. It was now or never. He grabbed the elastic band Beth handed him and tied it around his arm before he tapped out a vein and used the syringe to pull out what he thought was enough. “All the way to the top, Sam.” 

Dean was still only giving him orders and making sure he did this right. Sam got the feeling that’s the only reason Dean was even in the same room as him, so he took great pleasure in stabbing Meg in the neck with the syringe while giving her the first dose. _This is her fault. She’s the one that told Dean what we planned to make him do._ Knowing what Dean had done to those souls in Hell and knowing what Beth had been through in Heaven and knowing that would have been the perfect way to torture both of them . . . _It’s why I came up with it, and now they know, because Meg told them even though I’m not like that anymore_ . . . This was the least that Meg deserved for saying what she said and putting a halt to the steady improvement he’d been making with Dean. 

“Uh, Sam . . . I think –“ Beth started to say, before Dean grabbed Sam and shoved him towards the door until they were outside. 

“What the hell was that, Sam?” 

Sam didn’t know what Dean was talking about. “I know that look. Beth knows that look. Hell, even Meg knows that look . . . You wanna torture Meg . . . go sit in the car. I’ve got this.” _I didn’t even do anything._

“Dean . . . I didn’t –“ 

“You didn’t enjoy that? Is that what you’re tryin’ to tell me . . . do you even know what you just did?” 

They were being over sensitive. He didn’t do anything that Dean wouldn’t have done, so he said, “She’s –“

Dean finished his sentence with, “A demon . . . the one that killed Caleb and Pastor Jim and made sure Dad got taken by the yellow-eyed demon . . . the one that possessed you . . . you’re right hand for the last year . . . yeah, I know.” 

Sam got frustrated and argued, “No, she’s the reason you’re pissed off-“ 

“And? I’m pissed off with you and with me for giving you exactly what you wanted and only finding out now how close I came to bein’ the face that Beth saw torturing her . . . That don’t change what I just saw in that room . . . What I just saw was a return of somethin’ I don’t ever wanna see again . . . I didn’t even know you could look like that without the demon blood. You’re not being apart of this.”

_What did I do? I don’t even know. I wasn’t watching my hand . . . just her face . . . to make sure it hurt her . . . Maybe I’m not ready to be a part of –_ He stopped what he was thinking and said, “What about –“ 

“What do you think I was doin’ while you were purifying your blood . . . I’ve got this. We’re starting over as soon as I go back in there.” 

_So, Dean never thought I was going to be able to do this?_ “But you weren’t in the church. You –“ 

Dean pointed at his car and said, “Still on hallowed ground.” 

_Right. I get it._ “You didn’t trust me to –“ 

Dean gave him a brief shake of the head. “I wanted to . . . but you did a lot. I wasn’t sure you’d be able to fess up to all of it or remember it all.” Dean’s shoulders slumped a little, and he added in a brotherly way, “You did good, Sam . . . 4 ½ hours . . . that’s a hell of a lot of confessing for anyone to do. You’re just not ready to have face time with your demons yet.” 

This is why he needed Dean, and why he loved Dean as much as he did. He’d messed up again without even knowing it, but Dean hadn’t disowned him for slipping up. He just told him he wasn’t ready for things like this yet. Dean was still his brother, and nothing would ever change that. 

Sam moved unexpectedly to give Dean a hug. It was something he hadn’t known he needed until Dean patted him on the back and said, “It’s all right, Sammy. You’ll get there. We’ll get there together.” Sam tried to keep from tearing up before he stepped back and Dean added, “I knew it. The psychic vampire, harpies and Meg made you watch chick flicks all year, didn’t they?” 

Sam gave Dean a small smile and said, “Yeah . . . why do you think I went to the dark side.” It made Dean exhaled a brief laugh. Maybe being able to joke about it would help in time. 

Dean looked back towards the chapel. “Come on . . . Stay in the back away from all the action . . . I think Beth tamed her down some . . . Don’t listen if she says anything to you.”

He could manage that, so that’s what he did. He sat there and watched. At first he didn’t know how Beth got Meg to go along with this so willingly, but he figured it out after a while. It was pretty simple. Beth played up to Meg’s hate of Crowley by giving up a lot of information she knew about Meg from the future she saw in that TV show. She focused on every time she knew of that Crowley got one over on Meg, including when Crowley killed Meg and lived on without any real contenders to the throne after that. She might’ve left out the Abaddon part. 

It made Meg even more determined to do whatever it took to help defeat Crowley even if it was only by testing this out on her first to make sure it worked on Crowley. By the 4-hour mark, Meg started to have seconds thoughts. “What the hell is this? What did you talk me into here? I don’t want this . . . I can’t . . . you didn’t say –“ 

Beth pulled her chair closer to Meg and said, “You’re starting to feel what it’s like to be human again . . . That means you’re starting to feel all the pain and suffering you went through to become a demon along with the guilt for the things you’ve done as a demon . . . You didn’t understand what I really meant, because you haven’t felt any of that in so long, but I did tell you.” 

Meg took a couple of deep breaths. “Remind me again how this helps me get rid of Crowley.” 

Beth leaned forward and answered, “Well, if it works on you, it’ll work on Crowley, but mostly it’s because you’ll still have your memories from when you were a demon, and you’ll be able to tell us more than any book ever will about demons and Hell . . . and you can fight . . . we need all the humans we can get who can do that.” 

Dean was watching all of this happen from the sidelines, and he didn’t look like he knew what to make of it. “Beth . . . we, uh, can you . . . we need to talk.” Sam decided he wanted to be in on this chat, so he got up and went over to them. “Is that what’s really going on?” Dean asked after having a quick look at Meg over his shoulder. 

“Yeah, it’s like I said, she’ll be human when we’re done. I thought you said you watched the film at the bunker on the demon cure.” 

Dean gave her a sheepish look and said, “Well, I had Sam watch it and tell me what happened . . . had to uh . . . all right. I listened in on what you and Mom talked about,” before he looked up at Sam and said, “Looks like if you give up hunting, you’ll be our full-time nanny.” 

_Really? I’m so on this. I was born to be this kid’s uncle._ He could keep it safe and teach it about normal things, and he would never have to kill or torture again . . . just research and help them raise their kid. No temptation there, and their kid wouldn’t have to know what he’d done. To their kid, he’d just be Uncle . . . not Sam. He refused to be called Uncle Sam . . . Uncle Sammy worked. 

Dean glanced at Meg again. “Her soul . . . We’re un-demonizing it. So when she’s cured, her soul will be the one in that body, like it was her body all along, but what about the original soul from that meat suit? Where does that soul go? Or –“ 

Sam had this one too. “Already dead. Soul’s gone.” He was glad he got up for this family chat. He was contributing vital pieces of information. He was going to be their full-time babysitter. This was a pretty great team talk. Maybe he’d been sitting without a book or anything else to keep him entertained for too long. He felt a little too energetic. 

“But what about when she was human . . . There has to be a reason she went to Hell. How do we know she won’t be as bad a human as she was a demon, and how do we know anything she tells us about demons or Hell is the truth?” Dean asked. 

Those were good points. Sam looked at Beth for the answer. “Maybe she sold her soul. Maybe she was a witch. Maybe she killed people. Who knows? I just know it wasn’t for being a prostitute even though her Woman of Whoredom title would suggest otherwise. You don’t go to Hell for that . . . Whatever it was, I don’t think that after the torture she’s already been through she’ll want to go down the same road that lead her to Hell in the first place, so I think there’s a chance she can come back from this.” 

Maybe there was a chance for Meg, and maybe that’s why Sam had started to get more excited. It wasn’t just because he’d been bored and was being involved in this talk. It was the prospect that if a demon like Meg could be saved from ending up back in Hell, then maybe he could be saved from ever having to go there at all . . . of course if he couldn’t stay out of Hell, then there was always the chance that he could be cured of being a demon and have his second chance then.

2 hours later, Meg had lost the black eyes and was asking Dean if she could join his family. “I’ll be loyal. I’ll never let you down . . . never turn my back on you . . . You’re good. I could learn how to be good from you, and you fight for your family . . . I want to be a part of that. I’ve always fought for my families, but my families have never been good, and they’ve never fought for me no matter how much I give them.” 

Dean was sitting in a chair across from Meg and had his elbows on his knees while he watched her. He looked uncomfortable. “I, uh . . . I need some fresh air,” Dean said before quickly standing and heading out the side door of the church. 

Meg watched him go and looked at Beth. “You’ll talk to him, won’t you? He listens to you.” 

Beth looked at her watch, and then looked back up at Meg. “What do you think you’d have to do to be in his family? It’s not like it’s –“ 

Meg sat up, like this was a job interview and said, “Save people . . . kill monsters and demons . . . protect him . . . protect everyone in the family.” 

Beth looked like she was going to say something else, but decided not to engage anymore for now. It was starting to get into tricky territory. The more she said, the more likely it would be that Meg would take that as acceptance. How do you explain to a demon what family is? Meg was giving a pretty good overview of what it was like in this family with the hunting and loyalty and having each other’s backs no matter what. They couldn’t deny that those things were what made them family, but Sam had done the opposite of all those things this last year, and Meg would want to know why he got to be in their family if she couldn’t be . . . He knew why. It was down to love, but demons didn’t know what that was . . . It was tricky territory. 

Not long after the 7-hour mark, Meg started sobbing uncontrollably. “Please, you have to help me. It hurts too much. And the things I’ve done . . . make it stop. Please make it stop. I feel like I’m going to explode. I’m scared. Help me.” Dean and Beth glanced at each other. Neither one of them were very good at dealing with criers when they used to go on hunts. They were great at helping each other with the emotional side of things. They were great at helping traumatized people, but with criers, neither one of them knew what to do. 

Meg was almost human. What she was going through was pretty awful from the looks of things. Sam didn’t want her first memories of being a human to be that she had no help or felt like she was being rejected. He limped towards the front and pulled up a chair next to Dean and Beth before he said, “Meg . . . Look at me.” 

She stopped looking down and sniffled while she watched him. “You were with me when I was in Las Vegas . . . “ 

She started crying again, and her face scrunched up. “I know . . . I’m so sorry I ever got involved with you. We did terrible things to those people. We did terrible things to Dean . . . I killed your Dad’s friends . . . I made you kill other people . . . every time I called Azazel, I killed somebody to do it . . . and those aren’t even the worst things I’ve done . . . I have hundreds of years like that . . . I –“ 

Sam leaned forward. “Meg, listen to me. It’s a good thing what you’re feeling . . . Do you want to go back to Hell?” She shook her head and looked down again. “Then make sure you use what you’re feeling to be better. You won’t always get it right . . . I don’t, but it’s a process, and as long as your alive, you can keep working at it . . . Do you have an idea of the type of person you want to be . . . not the person you were . . . not the demon you became . . . the person you want to be?” 

She glanced at Dean and then at him before she nodded, so Sam said, “Then hold onto that ideal and do everything you can to become that. It’s not easy, but if you keep fighting for it . . . then there’s a chance . . . I don’t think there is for me, but I’ve been told there is . . . and if there’s a chance for me, then there’s a chance for you too.”


	17. The Punishing Angels

Castiel looked at the very human Meg standing in front of him before he looked at Dean behind her. They did it. They cured a demon. He could see creases and cracks in her soul from where it’d been thorny and hardened and scrunched up, like a ball, but it’d been loosened and smoothed out. Her soul carried a lot of torture and misery and at the same time, it was overwhelmed with guilt for all that she had done while being a demon and even before that. “What’s he looking at?” Meg asked turning to look at Dean before she looked at Castiel and said, “What are you looking at, Clarence?” 

He couldn’t believe they were able to achieve something like this. “Your soul looks remarkable.” 

Dean snorted and started walking past them through the hall. “Come on Cas . . . We’ve got some plans to run through for tomorrow. You can flirt with Meg in your own time.” 

Castiel left Meg to follow Dean saying, “It was not a flirtation . . . just an observation.” 

Dean grinned. “Oh yeah? Why are you gettin’ so defensive?” Dean was toying with him. 

Castiel knew that, and yet he still found himself saying, “I said the same thing to Beth.” 

Dean grinned wider in response and said, “Actually . . . I think you said her soul was magnificent,” before his smile dropped a little, and he added, “I know it meant a lot to her . . . it was the first time someone said something nice to her.” That was Dean’s way of thanking him for saying that to Beth, but there was more to it than that. 

“Something happened . . . what was it?“ 

Dean ducked his head before he glanced at Cas as they walked down the hall. “I lost my temper with Beth yesterday . . . I yelled at her and told her that I had the authority to lock her in the cell downstairs until she had our kid. It made her remember something bad that happened to her in Heaven.” That was worrisome. So far she’d been able to hold those memories back. 

Perhaps letting them out one by one was better than her remembering them all at once. That’s what Dean was worried would happen now, so Castiel said, “Remembering one memory at a time is better than remembering them all at once. It relieves the pressure in a controlled way, so it’s easier for her to continue holding the others back.” Dean nodded, like that made sense to him, but he still didn’t look hopeful. 

“What about when she has the kid?” Dean asked a minute later. 

“You mean –“ 

Castiel was cut off when Dean explained. “I mean what if when she goes into labor . . . the trauma . . . what if it makes everything else collapse?” 

Castiel hadn’t thought of that. “It is possible, but Beth suffered at the hands of Randy and the others at the camp in Wisconsin, and Beth was able to fight in Las Vegas and on that wendigo farm, and all of those happened after her memories returned. If she kept them blocked during those times, than I think she can keep them blocked for that.” 

He didn’t think it was something that Dean should worry about. Dean didn’t look like that reassured him at all, but he was done discussing that and asked, “You ever hear of Kushiel?” 

Castiel stopped in his tracks, but Dean kept walking until he realized Castiel wasn’t with him and went back to him. “Those in Heaven do not say his name lightly.” 

“Yeah, well . . . Beth remembered a time he worked her over,” Dean said before he started walking again. 

That couldn’t be right. Castiel caught up to him again. “Dean . . . you are sure she said that it was Kushiel?” Dean nodded. “Did he burn her?” 

This time Dean stopped and said, “Poured some kind of a liquid fire all over her again and again . . . Had some kind of whip of fire or something. She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t see. He poked out her eyes and left her hangin’ there for months . . . When she could start to see . . . she –“

“Her soul . . . parts of her were sloughing off?” Dean was watching him and nodded, so Castiel said, “He is a punishing angel that presides over Hell. He hasn’t been seen in Heaven for several millennia. He is only supposed to guard those at the top of the demon hierarchy . . . What he did . . . He had to have seen that her soul. There was no darkness or evil marking it . . . He knew she was an innocent . . . Why was this done?” 

Dean sighed. “One of the angels working for Raphael caught her in Raphael’s office when she was trying to find answers on why she was up there. They called in Kushiel to punish her and make a big enough impact she wouldn’t want to leave her cell again . . . didn’t work. She still broke out before she healed.”

“I’ll return tomorrow to take you Scotland.” 

Dean grabbed his arm to get his attention. “Whoa, Cas . . . where are you goin’?” 

“I must go to Heaven. I will see if I can find Gabriel to confer with him. If I cannot find him, I will speak with Michael. He must be told about this. I do not believe Crowley is our biggest concern. He doesn’t rule all of Hell . . . There are things that cannot be unleashed from the abyss. Kushiel is one of 7 that has the key to them, and if he did this, than he follows Raphael.” 

Dean looked like he didn’t quite understand the importance of what Castiel was saying. How could he? No man had seen those parts of Hell . . . They were parts that even Lucifer knew not to unlock . . . Dean may not understand it, but he trusted Castiel enough with his opinion to know that this meant something very bad, so he said, “What do you need me to do? We can just summon Crowley and cure him the way we did Meg. That was always the back up, so we didn’t have to look all over Guam to find his bones if they weren’t in Scotland. I could have Beth get the demon tablet . . . the angel tablet . . . whatever you need.” 

Dean’s complete faith in him meant something very dear to Castiel. Dean was offering him the power those tablets held, simply because he believed Castiel would use them for the right purposes. “I need to speak with Beth.” 

Dean went to go get her and when they came back, Castiel asked, “Do you know where the angel and demon tablets are?” 

“The angel tablet isn’t where it used to be. The first time they ripped a soul in half, Lucifer forced the person to get it for him, and then he put it in one of his crypts. I don’t know the exact location of it, but Meg does. She went with Azazel once, and he showed her . . . the demon tablet is in Nova Scotia.” 

That’s why Castiel hadn’t known there were others before Beth . . . Lucifer had done a lot of his crimes in secrecy, and when he did do something like tear a human soul in half, the angels that knew about it dare not speak of it after he went into the cage, but Raphael obviously knew about it, because he was behind it happening to Beth . . . and Beth having less than a full soul . . . as far as he knew, she was the only one in the universe now that could get the tablets that were hidden on the alternate plane . . . except . . . Castiel placed his hands on Dean and Beth once he pinpointed where Beth was thinking the demon tablet was, and they landed there. “We must get all of the tablets now . . . I fear we may already be too late.” 

Dean looked confused, so Castiel said, “Beth is the only one on the planet that can access the tablets. She is not the only one in the universe that can . . . She is the only one that knew the location of all 10 tablets, but just like with the prophecies, there may be those that know the location of some of them. I don’t think the tablet in Lucifer’s crypt is in immediate danger. The angels in Heaven don’t know about it, or it would have been retrieved a long time ago, but I can’t be sure about the rest.” 

The God tablet . . . thankfully that had been destroyed . . . the shapeshifter tablet had been destroyed after they got the cure for werewolves. They had the flesh eating monsters tablet in the bunker. They would go get the angel tablet after this. That was 4 that Raphael couldn’t have, but 6 were still too much power for an archangel to have. 1 was too much power for an archangel to have.

Beth disappeared onto the alternate plane and came back with the demon tablet. 5 tablets. Castiel flew them back to the bunker and told Beth to go give the tablet to Kevin, so he could start translating it and then to go find Meg and ask her where the angel tablet was. Beth was confused about the urgency of all of this, but did it anyway. 

“Hey, Cas . . . You wanna slow down for a minute. This happened to her 12 years ago. Raphael hasn’t used Rachel to get any of the other tablets so far . . . maybe a monster can’t get them. Maybe they’re safer where they are, and that’s why we decided to leave them where they are for now,” Dean said as Beth came back. 

“Raphael’s been planning this for a very long time. 12 years for us is like a day for a human when you’ve been around for as long as we have. Also, if you want to fight against Fate, then you must recognize when something fateful happens . . . I believe there is a reason that Meg was healed today and also happens to know the location of the angel tablet. I also believe there is a reason Beth remembered that specific memory yesterday out of all the memories she has hidden. It was not the worst was it?” 

Dean answered for Beth and shook his head. “She doesn’t think so.” 

“Then perhaps your argument was the catalyst, but perhaps God sent that memory through for a reason, so you don’t need to worry about any more of her memories returning for the foreseeable future . . . Raphael cannot be allowed to have the other 5 tablets in addition to the armies he is amassing. If you think demons that were human once are bad, demons that used to be angels are far worse . . . even one of them is somewhere between the strength of my immediate superiors and Michael. In the cells next to them are daevas . . . The ones that you and Sam encountered were juveniles. These are hundreds of thousands of years old. They can slice through an angel as easily as an angel blade. Next to those are rumored to be the demons that were born as demons. They are akin to the anti-christ boy we met, except there is no humanity in them. They were born of two demon parents . . . Those are what Raphael has access too if Kushiel is on Raphael’s side. If Raphael unleashes that army, it would be almost as destructive as if he’d found all 10 tablets . . . He can’t have that army and the tablets too.” 

Beth came back into the room and said, “We have to find Metatron. He knows what’s on all the tablets, and he knows how to tap into the power in them. If we take him off the board, we don’t need to worry about whether or not Raphael has already found some of the tablets, because we have Kevin . . . and . . . we need me to unlock more memories. We need to see if it was just Kushiel or if there are other Punishing Angels that I came into contact with up there . . . If it’s just Kushiel, I don’t think you have much to worry about. One angel isn’t all that bad, but if it’s all 7 of them or even a majority 4, then I think we’ll need to hit the vaults in Heaven, because we’re going to need something down here to protect ourselves with if he decides to use that army.” 

Dean was not happy about her offering to unlock her memories, and Castiel didn’t like the idea of it either, but perhaps she was right. Dean decided he would talk to her about it later and said to Castiel, “You got any problems with it if we kill Metatron? You know what kinds of problems he caused in the future Beth saw.“ 

“He hasn’t done them yet. You have sworn not to take the Mark of Cain. I have sworn not to help him with any spells and will make sure he doesn’t attempt the spell to make the angels fall from Heaven . . . Beth said he can be held in the cell downstairs. Perhaps he can be useful.” Castiel didn’t want to kill one of his siblings before they had done harm, but he was going to kill Kushiel if he ever saw him for hurting an innocent the way he did. 

Dean nodded in agreement with what Castiel asked of him regarding Metatron before he said, “Let’s find the tablets first, and as soon as you have a chat with Michael, we’ll go take care of Crowley. He might not have the keys to the abyss or whatever, but he still has an army of monsters that are getting harder to kill and plenty of demons that follow him, and Eve’s workin’ something too . . . we can do somethin’ about those two armies while we’re waitin’ on Raphael to make his move.”

3 tablets. Raphael must have the tablets on Death, Demi-Gods, and maybe the Leviathan. The Leviathan tablet hadn’t been in the alternate plane it should’ve been in when they went there, but Beth said that in the TV show Gabriel let her see, the Leviathan had excavated it out of the desert. Castiel would have to go and search every desert on the planet to see if he could find it if she couldn’t remember which desert it was supposed to be in. Maybe he could get Balthazar to help him, and then he’d go and talk to Michael. Raphael couldn’t do anything with the tablets he had if he didn’t have Kevin or Metatron, so finding Metatron was next on their list of things to do. Beth could help them with that.

“The tribe of the Two Rivers . . . That’s where Metatron was hiding out in the future I saw. I don’t know where he might be now, but I suspect he’s still there and kept the tribe safe during the outbreak as long as they kept supplying him with books,“ Beth said tiredly while laying her head on her arm on the table. She was tired, but they had much to do. 

Dean snorted silently from the other side of the table after watching their interaction. “Take me, Adam, and Sam after they’re done putting extra warding on the cell downstairs. She was ready to tap out before you took us to Siberia to get that witch tablet . . . We’ll just tell Metatron that it’s for his own good, because Michael and Raphael are both lookin’ for him . . . Wonder what he’ll do once Gabriel comes back if the archangels are what made him go into hiding. My guess is that was more to do with Lucifer and the two that are wanting to fight now, but maybe Gabriel’s changed since then.” 

Castiel never had a chance to know Gabriel when Gabriel was still in Heaven. The archangels were rarely if ever seen by the other angels in Heaven. The only angels that saw them were those that worked closely with them the way he’d worked with Michael before Dean became a vampire. His time with Gabriel had been much better than his time with Michael. Gabriel was someone Castiel felt proud to call his brother, and that is what Gabriel felt like to him . . . not his commanding officer, the way Michael was, or a comrade, the way other angels were, but his brother. To find that, they’d both had to come and live amongst humans. 

Perhaps it is something that Michael needed to do also. There was good in Michael. He just had a lot of responsibility, and he was watching Heaven’s Host fall apart. Michael had not faced the kind of underhanded politics he was dealing with until now. God had commanded that Lucifer be put in the cage, and Michael had done that, but he had not judged Lucifer’s actions himself. 

At the moment, that is what Michael was being forced to do with Raphael and Raphael’s followers. Michael taking others at their word and trying to play by the rules was putting him at a disadvantage. The thought crossed Castiel’s mind that perhaps Michael should take some lessons on how to cheat from Beth or Gabriel. Maybe there really was something in that kind of a lesson that translated into how to survive.


	18. Worn Out

Cas left a week ago. Everything else had kind of stalled out since then. Was Cas right? Was this a fate type of thing? Maybe. But Dean didn’t think fate talked to you and let you know it was fate . . . the only thing he was aware of that was kind of fateful was the stuff Beth knew from that TV show, like that douchebag Metatron sitting downstairs in their cell demanding books at all hours of the day . . . the timing was off, but that dick was still a part of their lives now. 

Beth never saw anything about this Army from the Abyss on that show. She just recovered a memory from Heaven that meant something to Cas. Dean had talked her and Cas into not messing with her head to try and unlock anything else. Sometimes he felt like he was the only voice of reason . . . most of the time people didn’t listen to him on things like this, but he’d take his wins when he got them, and this one was a win in his book. 

Beth was asleep again. She seemed to sleep all the time, and when she wasn’t sleeping, she was feeling dizzy even though she never said it. Dean had seen her have to put a hand out to stop herself from toppling over a few times when she did mild training and once going up the stairs. 

He’d asked the doctor about it, and the doctor said Beth probably needed more iron . . . How the hell was he supposed to get her more iron? She wasn’t eating as much he thought she should be either. He thought women’s appetite was supposed to get bigger around this time, not smaller, or that’s what those books said. He was worried about her. He was always worried about her, but her being pregnant made him worry more about her than he normally did . . . almost all the time . . . Something could go wrong, and he could lose her. She was a woman, and he was a man, and she could die in childbirth, and leave him here alone . . . maybe with a kid to raise on his own . . . he couldn’t cope with that. The closer it got to that date, the more out of his depth he felt, but he couldn’t let her know that. It’d add to whatever stress she was already feeling. 

He didn’t feel any better about the tablets all being here either. He didn’t feel like that made Beth any safer. He felt like she would always have a target on her back. And it was worse, because 2 of those tablets that Raphael probably had were taken from that alternate-plane or whatever it was that Beth and Cas called it. 

That meant Rachel had gotten them for Raphael, and the only way Rachel could’ve gotten them was if there’d been a separate key and Rachel was down here in a body. She could be anyone, or Cas said there was even the possibility Raphael could’ve made a duplicate body to put her in, so she’d look like Beth. Dean would know she wasn’t Beth, but nobody else would unless Raphael made her not look pregnant. If she came up to anyone in the camp after they left these walls, she could just pretend to be Beth and come back in the gates with them, and there was no doubt that Rachel would try to kill Beth the next time she saw her. 

And why the hell did they call in an angel from Hell to torture Beth after she broke into Raphael’s office? Did they really think if the Prison Security couldn’t get the point across the only other option was an angel that tortured the worst of the worst? Just getting a big name, like Kushiel, into Heaven with nobody noticing was a huge risk. There had to be more to it than that . . . Did Gabriel know? Cas said her soul had more holes in it than could be accounted for by Rachel being taken or one session with Kushiel . . . Maybe it wasn’t all Kushiel. Maybe there were a few more of these punishing angels involved . . . so maybe they were like signatures on her soul . . . Why? Why do that to her soul? 

Dean wished Cas would come back. He could ask him about it . . . maybe he should go look around the bunker and see if the Men of Letters knew anything about it. It was something that was bothering Dean, so he’d do it later when he had the time. 

Dean was supposed to be doing something. He didn’t even know what. Maybe it was something to do with the werewolves. About 20 of them had decided to stay what they were for now. They thought the camp needed more protection than they could offer as normal humans . . . especially after Tom and James saw the wendigo-wangs in action. It’d taken them a full week to get off that mountain and make sure the demons and wendigo-wangs were gone after the ogres were dead. 

It was a huge risk for the werewolves to take. If they died what they were, they’d end up in Purgatory, but it was a risk they thought was worth taking if it meant protecting everyone else here, and that was their choice to make even if Dean didn’t agree with it.

He was probably supposed to be going with them to raid Ouffat Air Force Base in Nebraska. That sounded familiar. His mind felt jam packed full of crap he didn’t know how to deal with because he couldn’t act on any of it . . . This raid might clear his head, but probably not. 

He’d probably still worry about whether Sam would ever really be good again and about whether or not he was really ready to be a Dad. And he’d still worry about Crowley and Eve and now Raphael and Michael and about why the hell Cas and Gabriel weren’t back here yet. Gabriel had gone silent a few weeks ago, and Dean was giving Cas another 3 days and then he was going to find a way to convince Beth to tell him where that playground was, so he could go to Heaven and get Cas and Gabriel out of there. They could start moving on things again once he knew they were all right. For now, he needed to go find Adam and tell him to go on this mission to Ouffat in his place, and then he was going to go lie down with Beth for a while. Maybe that would help.

Adam wasn’t happy, but he’d get over it. Dean was walking to his room and saw Meg coming the other way before she saw him, so he ducked into the room next to him until she’d gone by. A lot about her was the same . . . She was still snarky and smart. She fought dirty when it came to sparring, and she may not be the best at marksmanship with a gun, but she was as good as him when it came to throwing a knife. The big difference was that she wasn’t as confident as she used to be. 

She’d latched onto Dean for some reason, and now she was clingy. She should’ve latched onto Sam. She was Sam’s pet project, but mostly she seemed to hate Sam . . . She dodged Sam the way Dean dodged her. Didn’t seem to affect Sam’s determination one bit. Sam seemed to think that if Meg could come back from what she was, he could too, but Dean honestly thought Sam should worry about himself and not Meg, because Meg was gonna be just fine. Right now she was where Dean had been when he got out of Hell, except probably a million times worse, because she’d gone all the way with it, so there’s no way she was gonna do anything to end up back in Hell again, but Sam . . . Dean was done thinking about it. 

He crawled into bed next to Beth, so he could curl up behind her. This is what he needed. No thinking . . . just being here like this . . . course that’s when his kid decided to remind him it was there and kicked his hand. Feeling that kick, reminded Dean that he wasn’t ready for any of this. He wanted to be. He wanted to be a good Dad. He didn’t think he’d be any better at it than Beth thought she would be a Mom, and it wasn’t just that he didn’t think he’d be a very good role model for it. 

Everybody else always wanted something from him or looked to him to have the answers on things or there was always something like this Cas thing happening or he had to be there for Sam . . . There wasn’t enough of him to go around, and he didn’t want his kid to miss out because of everyone and everything else. And he didn’t want to be like his Dad . . . He wanted to be more like Gabriel. 

The kick must’ve woken Beth up some, because she rolled to face him and snaked her arm under his, so she could wrap it around him and snuggle into his chest. He automatically held her tighter and then wondered if he could get her to talk to him in her sleep. That’s what he’d do. He’d wait 10 minutes, make sure she was completely asleep, and then he’d get her to talk to him, but he didn’t make it the 10 minutes before he was out too.

He woke up maybe 45 minutes later to Beth tracing shapes across his back with one of her fingers. “Feel like you have to do something . . . but like everything is on hold?” she asked a few minutes later. He didn’t feel like talking about it. Maybe he’d take a page out of her book and just not say anything. _11 weeks . . . that can stay on hold for a while._ He had no idea where the time went on that one. 

It sounded like she was smiling when she said, “You heard what your Mom said . . . worrying means you care enough to worry, and that’s what matters . . . And you don’t need to hide it from me. If anything, it makes me feel better, because at least I know it’s not just me. You should talk to your Dad.” 

He hadn’t thought that him being unprepared would make her feel better, but if it did, then he was glad it did something for one of them. He didn’t want to talk to his Dad about being a Dad. His Dad had screwed up all three of his son’s lives in different ways. He’d figure it out better than his Dad had. 

Beth sighed and said, “That’s not what I meant . . . He’s our inside man. He can find out if Cas is in trouble, or if he’s just staying in Heaven longer because Michael needs his help. The angels are focused on each other, not any of the humans, and he already knows his way around from when he was looking for Rachel . . . And we can still summon Crowley . . . Or you could focus on getting rid of Eve if you want a break from Crowley. All we need to do is find a time spell in the archives, and you, Sam, and Adam can go be cowboys for a few days while you get the Phoenix ash.” 

They hadn’t had a chance to talk or just have time alone like this all week. Hearing her lay it out like that didn’t make it seem so bad, especially the Eve thing. He hadn’t thought about trying to find a time spell. He’d just been planning on waiting for Gabriel to send them back in time. Going back in time with his brothers was exactly what he needed. He’d even help with the research to find the spell if it meant they could get out of here faster. What about her? She’d wanted to go. He’d make it up to her. He’d add it to the long list of things he had to make up to her.

She’d stopped going on hunts and missions the way he’d wanted, but he knew that wasn’t easy for her to do. Now, she’d gone the other way with it and hardly ever left the bunker. She was miserable. He’d gotten her job at the school back for her, and that’d made things a little better, but he should’ve never had to do that, because she should’ve never lost it. The people around here had really overstepped the mark on that one, and it worried him. If that’s the kind of stuff that happened while he was away, no wonder she and Sam were off hunting until a lot later than he’d ever wanted her hunting. 

It was probably safer for her to hunt than stay here after what happened in Wisconsin, or that’s the way he’d felt when Sam told him what had been going on, and it’d made him feel even worse about that fight they’d had. Sam had been right about the other thing he’d said too. Dean had been spending too much time away from here if she couldn’t go. One, he needed to be here to keep her safe from the people here if they were going to be a problem, and two, he’d told her he’d stay with her at the other camp when it came time for her to take a break, and he hadn’t stuck with it at all, but he’d expected her to stick to her side of it. He didn’t know why he’d been doing all kinds of hunts that probably didn’t have to be done right that second. Mostly he thought that maybe it was because he hated running this camp. He’d liked it here before everyone else moved in. 

Ever since Cas raised the status level to red last week, training the people in the camp to be prepared for attack by angels was a top priority. He’d been busy stockpiling as much food, guns, and ammunition as he could. Bullets wouldn’t do a whole lot against angels, but then if devil’s traps on bullets worked for demons, why couldn’t those sigils the old camp used on Cas go on a bullet for angels? 

Dean knew it was becoming more of a military camp . . . They were even starting to organize themselves that way with block leaders and then neighborhood leaders and those reported to the council. The council were the advisors, and they all gave their opinions to him and expected him to make all the decisions. 

One of the werewolves was always on the supernatural tracking computer, so they could track the movements of whatever was out there and also to keep an eye on the camp in Wisconsin. The main camp in Wisconsin may have fucked them over, but the hunters didn’t save those people just to let them die, and there were still a lot of people in the outposts that had no part in what happened to Beth. 

They needed to be able to get there before the Wisconsin camp knew it needed them if it looked like there might be an attack, so he was always getting updates on that too. Running a camp and still trying to deal with all of the things that were going on with Heaven and the monster armies was probably the reason he’d needed a break and was in here with her now instead of going on a raid to Nebraska, and maybe it was why he felt like he wouldn’t have time for his kid after it was born. 

Dean hadn’t felt like he’d had enough time for Beth even though he’d been here all week . . . It’s why all of his observations of her were just that . . . observations, with him only having enough time to watch her try not to fall over or not eat enough or know that she slept all the time, and it was why he’d had to talk to the doctor about it without involving Beth, because there hadn’t been time for him to schedule a visit with Beth. He felt like she was the one that was going to have to raise their kid on her own with the way things were shaping up, and he didn’t want that at all. It was supposed to be the two them. He promised her it would be, and that’s what he wanted. He just didn’t know how to make it happen.


	19. Hypervigilance

“Does your brother know he doesn’t have to do everything by himself?” Tom asked from the driver’s seat. 

“He’s good at delegating if he trusts people to follow through on what he wants. It’s why we’re here. If it’s something dangerous . . . expect him to drop whatever he’s doing to go with you.” Adam answered looking out the passenger side window. 

“He does know we’re trained for this, right?” some ex-werewolf named Ron asked from the middle seat. 

“Doesn’t matter . . . All the hunters are trained for it too . . . Won’t change that Dean will always be the one to put himself between you and whatever it is that’s trying to kill you . . . It’s just the way he is.” _This is starting to sound familiar._

Adam didn’t want anybody else to start heading down the same path Bobby did. The other hunters had decided to take a backseat and just let Dean do whatever he wanted. They were happy enough with the results Dean kept producing and would follow him anywhere, but Bobby was a whole other story. 

Adam thought it was different than what happened to him. He’d spent 3 days in their hunter’s shack thinking they were dead and unable to face going out to the camp, because nobody but him and Chuck knew. When they came back, he’d lost his cool and said the worst things possible to Beth to try and get them to stay, and then he’d been racked with guilt over it. He hadn’t known the best way to go about apologizing. He wasn’t really one to say he was sorry for things. His big mouth and that were two things that he needed to work on, and he knew that. 

And then Beth and Dean they brought down Vegas with Ivan, Yuri, and Cas, and he’d been proud of them. He never got mad that they did it without him, because they hadn’t really done it without him. He played his part by running the camp and getting things ready for all the kids they were expecting from the convoys. Of course they got a lot more than they were expecting, but they knew he’d figure out a way to make it work until they came back, and he did.

It wasn’t until he found out Beth was rehabilitating Sam that a worry he’d be replaced by Sam after everything Sam had done started to take hold. Then Dean left too, and it wasn’t the same as it was when he’d been left to run things while they were in Nevada. For starters, Bobby took over as the head of the council while Dean was away, which was fine, because Adam was okay with being able to get away from the camp to go on a supply run. When he came back, he spent most of his time with the hunters, the people on the council, and the kids, and they never said anything negative about Dean or Beth, but when he wasn’t around those people, like when he had a guard shift, he started picking up on an animosity aimed at him because of his close ties with Dean and Beth. 

When Beth came back and said she was there to get him, he thought everything was going to be okay. He finally apologized. He found out he was going to be an uncle, and things were good until he got shot. But Bobby . . . that path that ended with Bobby wanting them all dead had begun when Bobby started saying that Dean and Beth didn’t have to do it alone . . . that they had a lot of capable people that wanted to help. Adam didn’t want that happening again, and he felt guilty he hadn’t done anything about the Wisconsin camp before it blindsided all of them, so he was making it his personal responsibility to make sure it never happened again. 

“What about you and Sam? Why aren’t either of you like that,” Ron said a few minutes later.

_So, all three of us are supposed to be the same, because we have the same Dad? I don’t even know you, but you think you know so much about me? You don’t._ Adam had a lot of mood swings these days. He had ever since he woke up in Kansas and found out what happened after he’d been shot. He’d almost died for no other reason than to make Beth watch it happen after she let Sam live. What kind of bullshit was that? And those dickheads almost killed Cas just because he was a part of their family too. 

That’s why Adam hated all of this attention. To be honest, he and Sam were closer than they’d ever been because of what happened at the camp in Wisconsin, neither one of them wanted anything to do with anyone outside of their family anymore. Beth was getting to be the same way too. Adam hadn’t run it by Dean yet, but he’d decided that unless Dean was at the camp, he wasn’t leaving Beth there anymore because of what happened when they fired her from being a teacher. That was the biggest red flag so far, and how Dean could let it go without kicking everyone in the camp out, Adam didn’t know. Let them fend for themselves for a change. 

After a long silence, Adam answered, “We’re brothers, but it’s not like any of us were raised the same way. My Dad met my Mom on a hunt, and they had a one-night stand. He didn’t know about me until I was 12, and then he came by once or twice a year . . . He didn’t tell Dean or Sam they had a brother. I didn’t find out about them until a year before the outbreak . . . I was raised as an only child, and the first time I moved was when I went off to college. My Dad raised them out on the road from the time Dean was 4 and Sam was 6 months old, because that’s when a demon killed their Mom . . . Dean was the one left behind in the motels to take care of Sam while my Dad went off on hunts . . . Dad could be gone for days or weeks without them knowing where he was or if he was coming back. When he was a teenager, Dean started going with him, and dedicated his life to saving as many people as he could to keep what happened to his family from happening to other people. All that traveling from place to place, never having a home other than the Impala, never staying one place long enough to really have friends, never living a normal life that didn’t revolve around monsters . . . Dean has always thought it was worth it because of the people he saved, and all that he has left to show for it are the people that live in the 20 homes nearest to the bunker . . . but that hasn’t changed who Dean is. He’s still trying to save as many people as he can . . . That’s why he keeps looking for survivors and why he will always put you above him . . . He doesn’t think he’s important . . . He thinks everyone else is, and that is the only way he’s been able to survive the life my Dad put him through and why Sam is the way he is, because Sam loves Dean like a Dad and a brother, and he resents that Dean is both of those things to him. He feels like Dean tries to rule his life and at the same time Sam wants Dean to be the one to rule his life, because Dean is all he’s ever really had.” 

“And that’s the real reason Beth didn’t kill Sam, is it? What he means to Dean?” Tom asked. 

_Fuck you and fuck everyone else at the camp. Talk to your buddies Rick, James, and Franklin. They get it. You used to until you went human. Now you’re just like the rest of them . . . This is going to end badly. We need to hit the road as soon as we can._

He’d just spent a decent amount of time telling them all of the good things about Dean . . . tried to explain why Dean was the way he was . . . and somehow it came back around to this suspiciousness crap. “No. There is a difference between justice and revenge. I know Beth’s already explained her reasoning to you. I know that because she has to explain herself every 5 minutes. I used to be at the top of the kill Sam off brigade. He was a monster. He’s not anymore the same way Meg used to be a demon, but she’s not anymore. Sam released Lucifer, and that’s why my Mom died. Sam tortured Beth and made Dean watch. Sam tried to feed me to a basilisk after he found out I was his brother. Sam sold Beth to the King of Hell in front of Dean, and the King of Hell beat her for 10 hours before Dean found her and got her back. Sam did a lot of really bad shit to Dean, Beth, and me and other people we know before he did it to the rest of the world. We’ve known what’s in him a lot longer than you, and if Beth thinks he can be saved, then he can be.” 

Ron answered, “Or she let him slide on the other things because of Dean.” _No, she’d never kill Sam for doing the bad things he did to her, because they were done to her. She never did anything about Jo, because she never saw what happened to Jo. It was heresay, and she was a lot different back then. She didn’t know how to tap into her soul._

Adam retorted with something Dean always said, “If you don’t like the way she handled it. Take it up with God . . . Did she and Dean ever tell you how they got away from Sam and his army at the Devil’s Gate in Wyoming?” 

Ron shook his head, so Adam said, “Beth wanted Sam to shut up and go and for she and Dean to not be seen leaving or for any of the demons to get out of the devil’s trap . . . 50 miles is how far they were from the edge of the trap . . . Almost as soon as she prayed it in her own Beth kind of way, hurricane force winds came in and picked up the snow and then lightning started striking the demons. This lightning was able to fry and kill them . . . no lightning should be able to do that. There was a demon cloud with millions of disembodied demons hovering above them. There were millions of demons on the ground even after Gabriel cleared out millions more. Dean and Beth ran in the blizzard like conditions for days, dodging lightning and craters the whole way . . . It was just the two of them, their weapons bags, and their angel blades . . . no time for sleep . . . no time for food . . . they had to keep fighting the demons and hellhounds that ran at them from out of the snowstorm. They made it to the end, and the wind stopped the second they’re feet hit the outside of the devil’s trap . . . but the lightning kept going . . . millions of demons fried into oblivion, and that kind of power . . . that’s what she’s got a connection to and still does if God picked up a couple of Amazons from their beds in one of the outposts to take care of those dickheads in the woods that tried to assassinate Beth . . . and that was after she made her decision on Sam.” 

It was meant to come across exactly the way that it sounded. It was a threat. A threat that said, ‘If you’re planning on continuing to question Beth’s motives and that leads to a need for you to try and make Beth pay because of what she did in saving Sam, and Beth ‘calls in the calvary’, as Dean called it, then expect there to be a price for that . . . and Dean and Beth are badasses if they could endure that kind of heavy fighting for as long as they did, so don’t think they’re weak or easy targets because they live to save survivors and have personal traumas and feelings just like everyone else . . . now drop it.’ And they did. Neither one of them said another word to him. 

He was done playing nice. He was done with the questions. When he got home, his full-time job was going to be watching out for the treachery he knew would come again at some point. The other asshole survivors could go screw themselves. They didn’t even know the half of what was going on out there right now . . . especially not what was happening in Heaven. And Dean and Beth were going to be parents soon, so they had a lot of other things to deal with other than dickhead survivors that they fought and bled for that did nothing but show their ingratitude. 

And yes, he included Sam in that family he was going to protect. Sam had done an awful lot of evil things, but Adam was big enough to admit that he’d been wrong on whether or not Sam should have a chance at being redeemed for that. Sam genuinely felt bad about all of it, and that may seem like it was too little too late. Maybe it was, but there was still good in there, and Adam was finally getting to see that side of Sam. It made a massive difference to him.

It’d been put on hold with everything else going on, but he and Sam were going to start looking into any ‘supporting materials’ associated with the prophecies to see if they could find something that would stop this kind of backstabbing from happening again. He didn’t think it was anything supernatural. He thought it was entitled humans just being dickheads, because they wanted a piece of Dean and Beth. 

Dean and Beth had each other and Sam and Cas and him and that’s all they really needed, but other people thought they should be allowed to have that with them too, and if they couldn’t have it or be apart of it, they felt the need to try and destroy it in some way. That’s what happened with Bobby . . . It’s also what used to happen when Dean and Beth went to the bars . . . those dickheads in the bars somehow picked up on the fact that Beth wasn’t available and still wanted a piece of her that they couldn’t have, so they tried to take it from her . . . It’s the same reason those women Dean used to talk to until Beth came over always did crazy things, like stalking . . . or looked like they’d carve up her face the way Trish did. Adam was done letting other people think they could have whatever they wanted from them, and he was done with letting other people think they could intrude on his family just because they thought they knew them. 

That was the main difference between he and Dean. Dean would let people keep taking pieces of him because of the way their Dad raised him to be, and Adam hadn’t had their Dad there to ruin his life and make him feel worthless, so it was his job to protect Dean from that. Defending Dean from that went beyond defending him from the monsters and demons out there and was more about protecting Dean from what could really hurt Dean . . . people . . . the same way people kept hurting Beth, and nearly killed Cas . . . and the same way people would become a problem for Sam someday when they stopped being scared of him. 

As far as Adam was concerned, it was time to hit the road again. It’s the one thing he always kept coming back to again and again. Get out there, save people, hunt things, but send the people they saved on their hunts to either Kansas or Wisconsin and then hit the road again and be done with them.


	20. Sam's Plan

“No! Would you just fuck off? We’re trying to discuss something here,” Adam shouted at Meg before he slammed the door in her face. Dean, Beth, and Sam shared a look before he came back over to them. Adam had been getting increasingly aggressive with the other survivors. Anyone not currently in the room was fair game. 

None of them had thought much about what Adam was dealing with after what happened in Wisconsin, because Adam seemed okay at first, but it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t. He was starting to lose it and had begun keeping records of what people said and did that he might consider threatening. But it wasn’t just Adam. Sam felt like the other members of his family were falling apart too. 

Dean and Beth had both lost the carefree way they’d had about them when it’d been just the three of them and Cas or Gabriel here. They were both worried about Cas and Gabriel and being only 10 weeks from their due date. They were both constantly on the move and trying to stockpile either weapons or knowledge, and they were always being hassled by a steady stream of people asking them for help on one thing or another. 

They were running the camp, and even though Gabriel had set everyone up, it was like none of the other survivors knew how to tie their shoes without being told what to do . . . unless it was the kids . . . The kids all tried to take care of themselves. The council helped a little, but Dean was still the one that had to make decisions on everything from how garbage was going to be collected from houses and where to put it to organizing raiding parties to go out and get more weapons and supplies. Dean ran a lot of what was going on outside the bunker, and Beth ran things in here, like the research side of things and coordinating with the troops that Dean sent out on raiding missions and setting up rotas for living conditions and making sure they were enforced . . . things like making sure people made meals for everyone else in the bunker in a scheduled way. 

They were both being run ragged, and all they really wanted to do was get out of here and take the fight to the enemies. They were looking for a time spell in what little spare time they had. The single most useful thing Kevin had found so far from the tablets was a recipe for demon bombs, but they’d need Cas to help them get the ingredients they needed to start making them. 

Crowley had somehow gotten around being able to be summoned. The suspense of waiting for something to happen with the Eve, Crowley, Raphael, and Michael armies added to the way their nerves were all fried from running things in the camp and the stress of knowing they were always being watched by most people in this camp. It was all too much for everyone. Fighting evil in the world to save people. That’s what they were all equipped to do. It’s what they’d all been trained to do, but taking care of those people afterwards . . . especially after having it turn out as badly as it did in Wisconsin . . . It wasn’t anything any of them had been trained to do or could cope with in any real way.

“I think we need to call this what it is,” Sam finally said interrupting Dean on whatever they were supposed to be planning that none of them really cared about. 

Dean decided to humor him. “What’s that?” 

“We’ve tried, but this just isn’t us. We have to get out of here, and I don’t mean for the weekend. We need to leave these people here and get back to doing what we do, which is hunting. You and the other hunters taught everybody else the lore, and staying here now that they can defend themselves from most things that are out there isn’t doing any of the civilians any favors, because they’re too reliant on you and Beth. They need to figure it out for themselves. We’ll bring the hunters, Meg, and the Amazons, because I’m pretty sure they feel the same. We need to set up a base that’s just for us. Some place like Bobby’s place used to be. We’ll keep in touch with the other hunters using radios or Sat phones if we can find any that are still working. If the other hunters need any help, we’ll know where to send other hunters to help them. We’ll take the tablets and as much from the archives as we can, but we need to go, because this isn’t us.”

Dean reflexively said, “We can’t just leave these people –“ but was cut off by Adam. 

“I agree with Sam. We need to hit the road. We’ll save people we come across, and we’ll send them here or to Wisconsin. They’ll be safe in either place. We’ll kill the things that are out there, and it’ll make the two camps safer every time we do. You don’t owe these people anything just because you saved them. They sure as hell don’t think they owe you anything, because you did.” 

Meg chimed in through the door, “I’m in . . . I don’t like the way most of them look at me.” Dean looked down at Beth, and she sat back thinking. She’d take her time with it on something this big. 

Dean said half to Sam and half to Adam, “What about her . . . you know . . . 10 weeks. Is she supposed to just have our kid out on the road?” 

Sam answered that one. “Well, it’s even harder for the angels, monsters, or demons to find us if we’re always on the move than it is if we’re staying in one place . . . and living out on the road . . . that’s kind of what it’ll be like, but like I said, we need to set up a base. In fact, Bobby’s place was unoccupied the last I checked, and he has that panic room already installed . . . so that’s where we’ll go.” 

“What about a school or . . . “ Dean stopped when he realized how much he was admitting by saying that. Dean wanted his kid to have things he never did, like a permanent place to live and a permanent school and other kids to be friends with. Sam felt some of the strongest pangs of guilt he’d felt so far at the realization that Dean wanted something for his child that Dean would never be able to give it. He’d robbed Dean of being able to give his child a stable life that he never got. 

This baby would never have that here or anywhere else. If they stayed here, their kid would be trained as a soldier. Dean would want his child to be able to protect itself, but he wouldn’t want his child to be raised without the ability to think for itself, and that’s the way things seemed to be going here no matter what Dean or Beth tried to do to curtail it. Most people here seemed to want to live under an iron fist, so that’s the way it would go. 

“Come on . . . You think between the 5 of us we can’t educate your kid?” Adam said with a sad smile, like he’d understood what Sam had about what Dean was really saying. 

Sam thought he’d help flesh what Adam was saying out a little more. “And . . . if you think about it, you’ll have 3 babysitters that will be on-call day or . . . Cas, Adam, and I would always available instead of having to do something with the camp, and that’s on top of the Amazons who will protect Beth’s kid the same they do Cameron’s . . . The two of you won’t have to leave your child here and worry the whole time you’re on a mission that something bad might hit the camp while you’re away. You’ll have a reason to bring him or her with you everywhere you go and 5 babysitters to keep it safe at the motel while you’re wraping up a hunt . . . or we’ll take care of a hunt while you two stay at the base camp for a couple of days or however you want to work it” 

“What about Metadouche downstairs or Cas? Cas won’t know where to find us.” 

Sam almost smiled. Dean wanted to get the hell out of here now that the questions about his child’s wellbeing had been suitably answered. Dean wouldn’t have asked that if he didn’t, but Sam hadn’t meant right this second. They could wait until Cas got back, but it sounded like if Dean had a choice, he’d leave tonight. 

He’d take this one too. Adam had done enough just by agreeing with him. “Well, Metatron had you bring that Native American tribe with him, and they already know what to do to keep him happy, and as long as he’s kept happy, he’ll protect this camp the way he did them for hundreds of years. As long as there are archangels around, Metatron will be happy enough staying somewhere he can’t be found, and he won’t be a problem . . . Cas . . . we should wait for him . . . And we need to talk to the other hunters and find out which ones want to hit the road. I know that Stephen guy definitely does . . . pretty sure Gwen does too. This camp can keep us updated on what they find on the computer, and we’ll take it or let the other hunters know. If it’s something big, then the camp can send out more people to help . . . Jody and the rest of the ones on the council can run things here . . . it’s the best way to start taking the fight to the other side . . . and it’s by doing it the way we always have . . . one monster at a time while we figure out how to get rid of the big bads.” 

“What about the kids?” Beth asked after finally deciding to weigh in on things. Sam hadn’t expected that. Didn’t look like Adam or Dean did either. “For some of them, Dean and I are their family. Some of them have parents here, like Adrien and Jasmine, so I know they’ll be all right if we go, but the others that don’t have anybody else . . . I don’t think I could abandon them if it was a permanent move. When I brought you here, I always knew I’d go back to the other camp for visits to check up on things the way you’re saying we should do with this place, but when I did go back after being away for so long, I saw what it meant to those kids that I was back, and what those kids tried to do for me when they thought I was in trouble . . . They risked their lives for me . . . Those men were aiming at Jenna and Ty . . . Andrea bled for me . . . I can’t leave them. They didn’t leave me . . . You find a place to put all of the ones that want to come with us, and then I’ll go,” before she got up and left saying she wanted some milk. 

Sam thought about how those teenagers were when they saw Dean out in the woods in Wisconsin. Dean and Beth were already parents whether they knew it or not, and Sam didn’t quite get that until now. Sam watched Dean work through it and come to the same conclusion Beth had before he got up to follow her saying she needed to eat. 

Dean was always chasing her around with food and trying to get her to eat these days, which Sam took as another sign that they needed to get out of here. It was like Dean was a caged lion at the zoo pacing back and forth trying to do anything to forget that it was actually in a cage.

Sam asked Adam how many kids they were talking about here, and Adam sighed before he ran his fingers through his hair and said, “I’m not sure . . . You know, Ty . . . he was with me when I got shot the last time. It took Beth a while to get to us, so it was just the two of us for a good 5 minutes that felt a hell of a lot longer than that. He wasn’t thinking about anything other than trying to stop the bleeding and asking me questions on what he should do, so he could keep me talking and awake. He wasn’t watching his own back even though they were shooting at him the entire time . . . If Beth hadn’t covered him until she could get back to us, he would’ve died . . . He and Jenna are both great kids . . . They’re responsible for 19 kids between them. They came in with 4, and after we started saving kids on the convoys, they found 3 more of theirs that they’d had to leave behind. The rest they either got from a teen named Julie, because they’re who she told her kids to go to if she didn’t see them again, or a teen named Corey. Dean and Beth found him with an aswang, but he didn’t make it, so when Ty and Jenna found out about it, they looked for the kids he took under his wing every time we brought kids back from Vegas . . . We didn’t have to ask them to do that. They just did it . . . Andrea . . . after Randy used her to get Beth to drop her gun . . . She wouldn’t go until Beth, me, and Ty all told her it was all right. She had blood running down her neck after Randy cut her . . . She should’ve just gone after something like, but she didn’t want to leave us . . . She’s got 3 kids she takes care of from your camp . . . only one of them was with her when Beth found her in Vegas, but the other two had been picked up on some of the convoy raids, and she found them when she got to our camp . . . Ben . . . I’m pretty sure you know him from a hunt you and Dean did . . . He’s coordinated the intake of every kid we’ve brought into the camp since he’s been there . . . and then you’ve got Ezra. Ezra only talks to Dean and Beth, and he does it when it’s late at night, because he’s got a serious fear of talking to people, but he can talk to his favorite star . . . which just so happens to be the North Star . . . Those ones I said . . . They’re definites . . . but I don’t know how many will want to follow them . . . Ben and Ty are the unofficial leaders of all the kids. Carrie’s a definite too . . . she’s Jasper’s owner . . . she’s almost 19, but she’s like a mini-Beth running around the place . . . she’ll follow Beth anywhere.” Adam hung his head after that and said, “After what happened, I forgot about the kids. All I can see is the bad in people . . . Mostly I think screw everyone that isn’t you, Cas, Dean or Beth, and I hate that they took who I was away from me.” 

Adam was opening up to him, and he noticed that Adam in had included him the family unit. He tried to put himself in Adam’s shoes. Adam had completely trusted the people at the other camp. Why wouldn’t he? They’d saved those people, brought them to a place they considered a home away from home, and from the looks of that wall and how many things Beth blew up when she was in there, they’d created a real safe haven and community for those people . . . and they’d helped create 9 other outposts that were a part of that community too. 

Adam had gone out with Beth and Cas to teach the kids how to make star charts, and the people at that camp had hunted Adam and Beth in the woods without warning . . . and those people had intentionally tried to kill Adam, so it would hurt Beth . . . Sam knew Adam thought of Beth as a sister. If someone tried to kill Sam in front of Dean, and Dean was left with a group of people surrounding him that wanted to kill him, and he couldn’t do anything about it because he was about to die . . . That wasn’t something he ever wanted to experience. It would make it even harder if he found out that Bobby orchestrated the whole thing. He wouldn’t ever trust anyone other than Dean again if they some how came out of that alive. 

Sam hadn’t taken the time to get to know any of the kids yet. He didn’t want to scare them after what he’d already put them through, but he could see why Dean and Beth wouldn’t want to leave them behind even if everything else about living here was something they hated. He’d find a way to bring those kids along too. It was his job to set the new place up for Dean, Beth, and Adam this time. They’d already been in charge of 2 camps. He’d been in charge of 1, and he would never ever make a camp like that again. 

He was joining the fight to save people again, and it felt good now that he had a plan in place on how to do that. They were moving back up North, so they didn’t need the walls the way they did down here because there were no Croats up there. Hunters would be coming and going from the camp whenever they wanted. It would be a lot looser in the way it was run. 

They’d make sure the place was secure and warded against any and all monsters and demons, but he was done with walls. He thought everyone else was too. And if the kids came with them, Dean and Beth’s child would have other kids to play with instead of being isolated out on the road all the time, so this plan worked out even better than the one he’d originally proposed. It was kind of the best of both worlds . . . road life and home life. He couldn’t go out on the road with them until he’d earned his arm and legs back, so he was perfectly happy running Bobby’s house as the new hunter camp while the others went out to hunt.

“Adam . . . I’ll make sure it gets done . . . you don’t have to worry about being here anymore. Staying here just isn’t an option,” Sam finally said after he’d made the decision for everyone. 

The relief Adam felt at Sam saying that was evident in the change in his posture. Adam had looked like he was about to give up on the whole idea if it meant they had to find a way to bring those kids with them, because Beth and Dean hadn’t given any ideas on how to do that, but Beth didn’t say no. Dean didn’t either. They were just tired of being the ones to set things up again and again, so they were saying that somebody else could do it this time. 

Sam knew Adam was just as important to the setting up of the first camp as Dean and Beth had been . . . and what happened at that camp had scarred Adam’s perceptions of this one, so Adam wasn’t necessarily too keen on the idea of setting up a new place instead of just hitting the road. Sam was kind of surprised that Adam trusted him enough to get the job done just because he’d said he would. He and Adam had made a lot of progress recently. He felt like he couldn’t let Adam down now. 

Something occurred to Sam. He knew the girl Adam was talking about if she was the one that owned Jasper. Tall, brown hair, brown eyes . . . kind of bossy. She was Adam’s type from what he’d heard, so he smiled while he said, “So, you and Carrie –“ 

Adam sat up straighter and said, “Shut up . . . you’re such an ass . . . a big giant, girly ass.” 

Sam got the appeal of what it must’ve been like for Dean to do this kind of thing to him for so many years. It was always funny when he annoyed Dean. It just was, but there was something about being the older brother annoying a younger brother that made it that much better. “I just think it’s funny you describe her as a mini-Beth . . . especially since she’s about 4 inches taller than Beth . . . I knew there was a reason you always followed Beth around like a puppy dog. You ever tell Dean you had a thing for her until this Carrie girl came around?“

Adam’s jaw dropped before his expression changed to pure disgust and he shouted, “You take that back . . . that’s not what it’s ever been like. You’re disgusting. Screw you, Sam.” _Didn’t deny the liking Carrie part. Nailed it._

Dean came back in the room at Adam’s shouting and looked like he was going to put an end to whatever they were fighting about, so Sam said, “Hey, Dean . . . Did Adam ever tell you he had a thing for Beth?” 

Dean looked down over Adam and said, “Oh, yeah? I don’t think you can handle her . . . takes a lot to keep her satisfied . . . see I think she’d –“ before he cut himself off when Beth came back into the room.

“Keep me satisfied? You’re one to talk . . . and I’d what?” Sam and Adam both laughed while they watched Dean squirm before she said, “Completely dominate him? But you’re forgetting that he likes to be dominated by women . . . don’t you Adam.” 

Sam laughed as now Dean and Adam both looked uncomfortable and Dean immediately said, “You can’t say shit like that.” 

Beth smirked while she said, “And why’s that?” 

Dean pointed at her and said, “Look at you . . . It’s just wrong . . . and you don’t say things like that, so it sounds even more wrong.” 

Beth smiled. “How do you think they think this happened to me? I suppose I could go into specifics. Clear up a few things, so they know you aren’t the one that likes –“ 

Dean quickly turned her around and ushered her out of the room. “Which one do you think is more dom –“ Adam started to ask and Sam shook his head. 

“Man, don’t go there . . . just leave it at it depends on the day.” God, little brothers were so stupid sometimes. Why even ask that? Just the thought of it made Sam want to find the part of his brain that thought it and . . . oh, judging by the smirk on Adam’s face, that’s exactly why Adam had said that. Adam was getting back at him for what he’d said. Little brother’s were dicks.


	21. Home Sweet Home

“What the hell happened now? Why isn’t Beth with them? Why isn’t Beth in the fucking Kansas camp either? Why is she heading East?” 

Sam exhaled. He didn’t know what was happening, but no matter what it was, Dean was going to be flip out. He went back to looking through his binoculars and watched the semis with big wards painted on the sides following a lead snow plow. So much for having a hunter’s camp that was just for hunters. It looked like there were a lot more than 100 people coming here now. “Not sure. Guess we’ll find out when they get here,” Sam replied before sliding down from their perch on Bobby’s roof to one of the windows on the second story, so he could climb inside. 

When he hit the bottom floor, he called down to Adam and told him to let Carl and Rob out of the panic room. They’d heard the trucks coming long before they could see them, so they’d been prepared. It’d been a good practice drill. Crowley knew about Bobby’s. He’d had a few demons stationed around the place, but since nothing had happened here in well over a year, they hadn’t been expecting anyone to show up and had been easy for Adam and Dean to take out. Demons were still bad at being guards. They should’ve heard them pulling up the same way he and Dean had heard these trucks coming, but they hadn’t. No wonder, Las Vegas had been taken so easily. What had he been thinking working with demons at all? 

They’d only just gotten the frames up on a single cabin. The foundations were done, and that’s about it. They wouldn’t have anywhere to put these people. Maybe if they got these people working on building the cabin, they could have it done by tomorrow night, but they didn’t have beds or blankets yet. They were supposed to be able to have time to get this done. They’d only been here for about a week. If Beth was sending all these people here now, then there had to be a reason for it. 

When the snow plow pulled up, Jody and Missouri hopped out. Dean pushed past Sam to approach them, but before he could say anything, Missouri said, “You need to calm down.” Yeah, Dean had been in a bad mood all week. Part of it was because Beth wouldn’t cough up the location of the playground to get into Heaven, and part of it was just the stress of everything that had to happen before they could go back to the simple life of hunting. 

Sam looked at the drivers of the semis. It looked like the rest of the hunters were here . . . in fact, this was pretty much exactly what they’d planned. It was just that there were a lot more kids, about 10x as many as they’d been expecting, but this still looked like their hunter’s camp. Maybe Beth decided she couldn’t leave even more kids there. Maybe she’d been collecting kids the way she did monsters and decided, ‘No, I can’t leave that one either.’ Maybe she sent them, because she was nesting in a weird way that didn’t involve cleaning, but collecting kids and building camps. If she was than she was nesting early, which might mean they could expect a baby around here sooner.

Sam noticed Beth wasn’t with them, so that meant Dean was right about that. “Well, aren’t you fast on the uptake, Sam? She’s not here, and she ain’t coming. She’s taking 1/3 of the people back to Wisconsin, and then she’s heading off to where the demon tablet was . . . says she’s puttin’ the tablets back and will protect them if Rachel comes for ‘em.” It looked like Missouri wasn’t in a very good mood either. 

Jody gave Missouri an annoyed look before she quickly responded, “You know there was a better way to tell them than that.” 

Jody didn’t look like she was in a great mood either. Everybody was in a bad mood. That was just . . . amazing, fantastic, really what he needed when now he had to calm Dean down. “What the hell do you mean she took the tablets back? And she’s going back to Wisconsin? On her own?” 

Sam kind of got why Beth decided to just do it without stopping here first. She always would’ve gotten that kind of reaction from Dean. Sam should be worried or pissed off. He wasn’t. He trusted Beth’s judgement. It had to be something pretty big if she was dividing what was left of the human population into thirds and separating them . . . in fact with the ones they’d left behind in Wisconsin already, there would be twice as many there as there would be in Kansas. She did things for a reason, so Sam said, “They know about the bunker . . . That’s what this is, right?” 

Dean looked at him and then looked at Jody, and Jody decided to focus on Sam instead of Dean, since Sam had the cooler head right now. “She talked to Metatron. Metatron told her it was all over angel radio the last few days. Both Michael and Raphael were waiting to see who made the first move, but their armies were ready . . . He told her she may have a few days at most. He’s staying in the bunker to protect the people there, and so the people there can protect him . . . She thinks it’s still the safest place for him to be, but if there’s a direct assault on the camp, she didn’t want more people than could fit into the bunker to be left there. 1000 kids and the hunters here, and the rest of the run off, she’s taking back to Wisconsin on her way to where the demon tablet was . . . She’s taking Kevin with her, so she can keep him and the tablets safe . . . Abbey and Cameron went with her too,” 

“Why the hell didn’t she just take the tablets to the one in Wyoming? It’s a hell of a lot closer. And why the hell would she listen to anything Metatron says?” Missouri gave Dean a look in response and then walked away. Missouri was definitely in a bad mood. 

Jody watched Missouri go and said, “She thinks Beth jumped the gun too . . . I don’t. I think even if it’s faulty information . . . It’s better to act and not need to do it than not act and wish you had when the armies of Heaven are knockin’ at your door.” Sam thought Jody was right. Dean calmed down some too and looked like he agreed, so Jody said, “And as for the Wyoming thing . . . She said you’d say that or maybe even something about Montana. She said to tell you she was multi-tasking, because someone had to take people back to Wisconsin,” before she switched gears and added, “So . . . looks to me like we’ve got a lot of work to do to get this cabin up . . . you boys start clearing the ground and pouring the foundations on another one . . . and the rest of us will start building around that frame you’ve already got up . . . should have this one done by tonight . . . we brought beds and blankets from the camp for everyone, so we’ll be able to put kids in the new cabin tonight, and the rest can stay in the back of the trucks in their beds until the next one is built.” 

They’d come into this with a plan, so it wasn’t like they were all going to be screwed. “Did you bring any food,” Sam asked Jody while they walked towards the cabin, so she could see what needed to be done. 

She smiled. “You think we’d bring beds and blankets and forget about food? What do you take us for, Sam? We’ve been at this for a while . . . learned from our mistakes in the past . . . even brought a large enough supply of books and files from the bunker to keep you happy. Not as many as you’d planned mind you, just what Beth and the others managed to copy, so the bunker could have copies too . . . they’re in the back of the snow plow.” When Jody finished, she went over to Carl and Rob and asked them where they needed everyone. 

Sam watched as people started to get stuck in on the work. All these people did this kind of work like they were pros at it now. Even the kids did. That first camp had been a world-class training center on survival techniques. He wondered how similar this camp would turn out to the first camp. This camp was intended as more of a base camp, but the base camp was going to need food and supplies. Hunters couldn’t spend all their time doing that. They still had to be able to go out and kill the monsters, or else this wouldn’t work. 

Maybe there could be some people that were always here at the camp and in charge of going out to get food, but from places close by . . . day trips or weekend trips, and they could help in the school . . . running a camp that was on the level wasn’t as easy as he’d thought it’d be. He was just starting to understand what he’d really signed on for now and why Dean, Beth, and Adam hadn’t wanted to be the ones to set this place up. 

When it was just 100 kids and hunters that were coming and going, he could handle it, but 1000 kids and hunters that were always out on the road was a completely different task. It didn’t matter. He’d said he’d do it, and even with this turn of events, he would. At least he had Dean and Adam to help advise him on the best way to do this, or he would if they weren’t heading for the snow plow they’d come here in a week ago with their bags packed. 

“Hey, where are you going?” Sam called after them while he limped that way with his cane. 

“I have a few days to catch her while she’s setting things up in Wisconsin, and that’s if they don’t shoot her on sight . . . If I don’t catch her before she leaves, it’s 3-4 weeks to Nova Scotia from there in the snow . . . if she’s lucky . . . And she’s plannin’ on staying there and protecting those tablets from Rachel . . . If Rachel doesn’t show, where does that leave her when it’s time? If Rachel does show, then what? This is the stupidest idea she’s had . . . 8 ½ weeks left, and she still doesn’t get it . . . I’m gonna kill those dicks with wings just for takin’ her common sense.” 

Sam knocked on the door with his cane after Dean slammed it shut, so Dean rolled the window down. “You know . . . if she kills Rachel while Rachel’s down here in a body . . . Rachel will go to Purgatory, because Beth doesn’t have a deal worked out with God to get Rachel brought up there this time.” 

Dean looked like he might consider that before he stubbornly added, “IF she kills Rachel . . . Rachel was a hunter . . . Rachel was a good hunter . . . and the last I checked, she wasn’t about to have a kid . . . and the reason Beth’s drivin’ there is because all of our angels have gone MIA . . . how the hell do you think Rachel’s been getting around the place to get these tablets,” and rolled up the window while he started the truck. 

Rachel was a good hunter, but Beth was a great hunter. It took more than having the right skills to be a good hunter. It took a brain and knowing your limitations and how to get around those limitations to kill things that were bigger and faster than you. Rachel never tried to figure out a way around something . . . if it wasn’t an easy kill, she’d hold back and wait until he or Dean were there to help. Beth never did that. She always tried to find a way around the monsters on her own, and her being pregnant was never going to stop her from being able to do that. Just because a woman got pregnant didn’t mean she was going to change her personality, so maybe Dean was the one that didn’t get that with only 8 ½ weeks to go. 

If anything was going to be a problem for Beth, Sam thought it might be an angel, depending on the angel, but then Sam didn’t know how Beth was when it came to fighting against them. He’d seen her fight against demons at the Devil’s Gate, and she was good. There’d been rumors in the Las Vegas camp that she’d actually killed an angel when she trapped Michael, but he hadn’t been able to have those rumors confirmed, because no demons had seen it. They’d heard it through the grapevine from somewhere though, because he’d asked Beth about it a few weeks ago and finally heard the answer from the source. 

Now he thought that some angels had to be working with some demons in some capacity or else those demons in his old camp wouldn’t have heard about it, because there were no witnesses there that day other than angels watching in Heaven. What if Crowley got wind of the parts of Hell Cas was worried about through the same kinds of back channels that Sam’s demons used to hear about Beth killing an angel? 

Crowley had a lot of spies in Hell, on Earth, and in Heaven. What if Crowley was actually working on a way to open up Purgatory the way Beth said he did with Cas in the future she’d seen? Crowley taking on all those souls would be more powerful than either Michael or Raphael even if Raphael had 3 tablets. Sam didn’t underestimate Crowley. Sam knew Crowley was out there watching and waiting for his moment. _What if Crowley is in Nova Scotia waiting to get the demon tablet? What if this is what sparks everything off and that’s really what Metatron wanted? Why does it seem like it’s always one thing after another with no breaks in between and no way to see anything we plan through to the end?_

After Dean left, Sam went back towards the cabin that was starting to take shape and probably would be done by tonight. A lot of people had followed them here, but they were the right people. The hunters didn’t agree with any of the things he’d done, but at least the hunters were willing to give him a chance, which surprised him. He’d thought they would be the first to want to put an end to him the way Roy and Walt did after he released Lucifer, but these hunters had the same fears he did. If he’d died, what would he become? 

They wanted to prevent that from happening, so they were on his side, and the kids all looked happy while they helped nail in planks of wood onto the house or ran around the place trying to play hide and seek between the sheds, piles of cars, and snow. He hadn’t gotten his family away from the needs of running another camp, but he’d gotten them away from the outsiders. He’d always wanted to be one of the normal people, but it looked like even when the most of the rest of the world had been killed off, he still only ever really fit in with hunters. Being a part of a community with people that he’d spent his whole life trying not to become was actually starting to feel right to him. It’d only taken him being the one to kill off the rest of the world for him to see it.


	22. Change of Plans

“So, you twenty-one are gonna take care of these kids? Do you have any idea how crazy that sounds if you’re all gonna be out on the road?” Missouri asked me while we loaded up another snow plow with books from the bunker. We were bringing Dean, Adam, Sam, Kevin and Chuck, Pamela and Stephen, Gwen, Rufus, who would go back to staying in his old cabin, but help us with hunts . . . he especially was ready to get his old life back, Carrie, Ivan, Yuri, Olga, Tatiana, Meg, Abbey, Cameron, Carl, Rob, Max, and me. 

Deacon and Sue were staying here with Jody to help on the council with Tom. “Twenty-two . . . you forgot about Carrie,” I answered. Devon had pulled out at the last second, so he could stay here with Steph. He’d be a good hunter for the Men of Letters camp. I remembered when I saved him and Steph. I thought it was kind of cool that they were together now. 

“Twenty-one . . . don’t think I don’t know Rufus is headin’ off all on his lonesome,” Missouri replied with a little look. 

We were taking 100 kids with us. A lot of them were staying in Kansas on the condition that we would have our camps merge a few times a year, so they could all see each other again, otherwise we would’ve been taking closer to 2000 with the way they all started saying they wanted to come with us when we told them we were leaving to set up a hunters camp. 

I’d take all of them if I could. They were still learning to protect themselves here, but it was different than the way the first camp had been set up or the way the new camp was going to be set up . . . The new camp would be a lot more like the kind of training Adam and I had with locks and stealing cars and other useful tools of the trade . . . It would be more fun than the drills the people here were running, and these kids needed some fun . . . and freedom. Some people thrived under strict regimes like the ones going on in this camp, and that was fine, but I in particular was not one of them . . . I grew up with angels. I was done with that kind of a life.

I had no idea how this camp ended up this way anyway. Maybe Dean had pushed hard on making sure the people here could protect themselves, but Tom and the other military men all took that to heart and turned this camp into what it was now . . . The kids had a school that Sue had set up, and Tom and the other soldiers were going to go out and start searching for more food, since Gabriel hadn’t been here in a while . . . the kids left here would all be okay. The same went with the adults here. I did wonder how long it would be before Jody and the others on the council got fed up with this place and came to join us, but only time would tell. At the very least, we’d set up 2 new potential cities for the future, and were starting on a third, so that was the way I was choosing to look at the move for now.

“We can’t stay here, and I think you know that and why. The kids being left here can cope with us leaving. The ones we’re bringing with us could not, and to be honest . . . we need them too. We’ll take care of them. Rob and Carl are building new cabins . . . Dean and Sam are going to make sure we get generators and pumps, so we can dig wells and have electricity . . . Sam’s going to sort out creating a school and making sure they’re educated. And we will keep them all safe and fed and warm . . . All of hunters might be out on hunts at different times, but there are enough of us that will be there to watch them. And once we hear back from Cas and Gabriel, then they’ll help us with the medical side of things . . . We need to start fighting in this war instead of waiting for the different armies to form or humans won’t win . . . and we’re going to do that fighting, the way we do best . . . by hunting one monster at a time . . . and those kids will learn what it means to win the small battles, and how that can make a big impact on the big battles, and that’s important,” I finally answered while I happily opened my arms and dumped the books I’d been carrying into the back of the truck. 

Missouri watched me and said, “All of this bull you’re trying to sell me on, and you want me to know that you don’t think it’s wise to put all your eggs in one basket, otherwise you would’ve have let that little thought slip through when you’re blocking everything else.” That was true. It tied into my 3 cities idea. It was better if the entire population of what was left of the US wasn’t located in the same place. 

When we were in Wisconsin, that thought never crossed my mind, but now that these supernatural armies were starting to take shape and could start their battles at any second, I thought about it quite a lot. If this camp got taken out or the one in Wisconsin did or even if the one we were going to set up now did, then at least some people would survive if they lived in other places around the country. 

“Well, all right. You sold me. I’m comin’ too . . . this camp’s got that angel in the basement and that supernatural computer . . . It’ll be fine . . . Your camp could use someone like me since Pamela’s planning on being out on the road more than she’s planning on stickin’ around and Chuck can only get future information on the Winchesters . . . and plus . . . I hate this camp too. Can’t stand it, so I’m comin’ and I’ll help keep those kids in line . . . helps if you know when one of ‘em’s gonna do somethin’ stupid before they do it . . . and I’ve got my eye on a few after what happened when a couple of ‘em got away from me and Pamela in the woods.” _Thanks, Missouri. That’s fantastic._

“You got any idea what to do about Castiel?” she asked as we walked back into the bunker. It’d been 3 weeks. In my opinion, that was too long. It’s not like it used to be when he’d take off for weeks or even months without us seeing him. I was worried that he’d been caught and reprogrammed or tortured for our whereabouts by Raphael or any one of a number of very bad things, but we couldn’t rush into anything. We had to play this smart if it turned into a rescue mission. 

“Oh, I’ve got ideas, but we need to wait until John finds out one way or the other. No point in rushing into Heaven if Cas isn’t even up there or if Cas has just been spending all of his time looking for Gabriel to confer with him. He’s gotten much better at using subterfuge and not giving a damn what his superiors think . . . have to trust that he’s got it under control,” I responded before I added, “but if he stops here, Jody knows where we’ll be . . . he has a bit of time to come back to us before we’re fully moved out anyway.” 

I didn’t let Missouri hear this part, but there was no way I was letting anyone take off without me to go up and get Cas if he was locked up in Heaven. Nobody knew the behind the scenes of Heaven as well as I did, not even most angels, because they didn’t go to the places I used to go to hide from them. I didn’t care if Dean thought John was a suitable guide. 29 years trumps a few weeks, so they were going to have to wait until I could go too. 

It’s why I’d only given them the layout of the playground, but not where it was located. If Dean wanted to go there without me, then he was going to have to find a way to get past my blocking him on it. He wasn’t happy about it. It might be why I’d jumped at the opportunity to stay here and get the books ready, so I didn’t have to hear about it for 2 weeks straight. He would’ve gone to Heaven last week if I’d told him where that playground was. 

The playground was a fail safe Gabriel had let me know about in that show. It was a break in case of emergency playground. Gabriel knew what I was like. He knew I wouldn’t stay down here even if he did tell me not to go up there. He just didn’t want me traipsing around Heaven for the slightest thing, and Cas might be okay. Gabriel might be okay. What happened if we went up there and got caught when they were just fine? Very bad things, so against my normal nature, I was making us wait.

After I was done taking a break from the book deposits for the morning, I decided to talk to Metatron again. I annoyed him. As soon as I walked in today, he started in on trying to return the favor. “You know you won’t win, right?” 

“Who did God have you write those tablets for in the first place?” 

He gave me his creepy smile and said, “Humans . . . because you need to have everything handed to you.” 

I sat down in a chair across from him. “Or we’re the only ones that can rightfully use any of it . . . besides, I think you got something pretty good out of the deal, didn’t you? Isn’t that what you guys live for . . . a private meeting with God?” 

He laughed in disbelief in response before saying, “You think I wanted all this? Having to flee my home?” 

I wasn’t in the mood to deal with him today, so I said, “Yeah, well . . . I think given half a chance you would wreak havoc down here and in Heaven just to have God come back and see you for 5 minutes before He or She put you down, because that’s how much being with God meant to you. I also think that originally, part of the reason you left, is because you used to be good. You knew the angels weren’t supposed to have what was on those tablets, so you left to keep that knowledge safe, but over the years, you’ve grown bitter,” before I got up to leave.

“They’re coming any day now. It’s been all over what you guys call angel radio. Raphael and Michael both know about this place. You should’ve left the tablets where they were, and you should’ve left me where I was,” he said when I got to the door. Was this one of those things he did to mess with people? Gabriel had shown me what Metatron was really like in the future he showed me. 

I didn’t look at Metatron while I asked, “What will you do if they find you? Be the angel you used to be or the one you are now? I know you know enough to keep yourself safe if you remember the spell on how to kick all the angels out of Heaven. If you felt like it, you could protect yourself and these people using other things I’m sure you know.” 

He sighed. “I guess neither of us will know until the time comes . . . tell me . . . after what they did to you . . . what would you do if you had the power to wipe us all out?” Good question. If I had that kind of power . . . the power in the tablets he was asking me about . . . what would I do with it? 

“As long as there are some among you that are good, then there’s hope for most of you . . . just not all of you . . . and I don’t need the kind of power you’re talking about to take those angels out. It’s why I’ve been training with angels to learn how to fight against angels.” 

“What if I said you already had that kind of power? I know you were in His presence, because I can see the mark He left.” 

I turned around. “You mean with the way God helps out when I need it? Is that –“ 

He smiled and said, “He takes a special interest in some, but it always comes with a price.” _He wants me to ask him what it is._

“Yeah, well nothing comes for free, so that’s not really a news flash.” 

I turned to leave again, and he said, “You’re not one of His favorites. He’s using you to –“ 

“I don’t remember the meeting, but I highly doubt I walked into anything with my eyes closed. If anything, I’m sure I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.” It wasn’t just about the tablets, or God would’ve stopped listening to me after I broke the tablet in Vegas. There would’ve been no further need to continue helping me after the threat to God was gone if that’s all it was. It had to be something else, but I wasn’t going to try and figure it out. If I was meant to know it, I would. I’d probably go insane trying to figure it out without being able to remember anything, so there was no point. I had other things to worry about. 

“You know the mark he left is the reason that other humans will always try to destroy you . . . and the angels . . . don’t get me started on them. They will always hunt you the way they do me . . . so they can use you as a conduit to speak to a Father that lost interest in them as soon as humans were created . . . you should go. They are coming. Take the prophet and the tablets, and I will protect those that are here . . . it’s only because you and I are alike that I will help you this once.” 

He seemed sincere. “What about Cas and Gabriel?” 

He shook his head. “I don’t know if one or both of them have been caught and gave the location of this place away or if Michael and Raphael recognized Gabriel’s signature when he built this place for you, but they do know where you are, and they’ve known for a while. They’ve been having a standoff with one another to see who will make the first move, but they won’t wait forever.” 

“Thanks . . . I’ll make sure somebody brings you down a few books. I know you’ve read just about everything . . . I don’t like to read something more than once . . . It’s not any fun if I already know the ending, but somehow . . . I don’t think that’s a problem for you.” 

He smiled again and said, “That’s the other reason I’ll help you . . . You seem to understand me a lot more than I would’ve thought . . . even if an archangel is the one that told you about me and painted me in a bad light.” _Yeah, not gonna question Gabriel on that one. He hasn’t steered me wrong yet._

It looked like I had a big decision to make, so I left and went to go find Jody. “Jody, can you do me a favor. I need you to help me organize a move with Tom and his men . . . I’ll need you to take Missouri, the adults that were already planning on going there, and 1000 kids to Bobby’s . . . I’ll make a list of which kids should go . . . we’ll have to split up what’s left of this camp. Half of the people will stay here . . . enough that they can be brought inside the bunker and all fit inside it if there is an attack. I will lead the rest back to Wisconsin . . . Tell Dean that I’m taking the tablets to where the demon tablet was. I’ll stay there to protect them if Rachel shows up. I’m bringing Kevin too. We’re heading out by 2 am.” 

“Do you know something?” _Not definitively._

I shook my head slightly and said, “I don’t know for sure . . . I just know that Metatron told me that Michael and Raphael know about this place . . . and that they’re coming for me, Kevin and the tablets soon . . . He’ll stay and protect the humans that are left here . . . This bunker should almost be impenetrable, but I think we should err on the side of caution, and they don’t know about Wisconsin or Bobby’s . . . we need to –“ I didn’t want to admit it. I might be making a judgement call on a lot of people’s lives, but Jody already seemed to understand, because she finished that sentence for me.

“Spread out the rest of the survivors just in case?”

“Yeah . . . I think this is the safeset place on the planet for Metatron to be. He still knows every last word in those tablets, and Raphael has 2 or 3 of them, so all he needs is to have Metatron tell him how to tap into the power of those tablets, and he’ll be 2 or 3 times as powerful as he already is . . . and then the war will start . . . the real war . . . the one with angels and demons and monsters that are all vying for supremacy . . . People need to stay here to help protect Metatron even more than he needs to protect them . . . And I don’t completely trust him. This could all be a ruse to get something he wants, or to amuse him, or it could really be something.” 

She looked around the place and nodded before she said, “All right . . . I’ll get Tom . . . you get the hunters . . . we’ll come up with a plan and then get moving.”


	23. Heading East

Jess from the fishing outpost let Dean through the front gate saying, “Sorry, Dean. She left just before that snowstorm blew through the day before yesterday.” _Probably slowed her down some . . . Slowed me down getting this far._

“She helped you put the new wards up and filled you in on the new angel ammo we’ve been making?” Might as well make sure the place was safe before he left. 

“Yeah, she stopped at Karen’s place first to drop off about 250 kids and filled her in on it too. We’re working on marking the ammo we’ve got now. She told me to get onto the main camp with the new information after she was gone for a day or two. I was thinking of doing it tonight. I can wait until tomorrow if you want me to buy you time too,” Jess answered. 

“Should be fine if you tell ‘em tonight . . . the sooner the better. What about the area patrols? Are they still going?” Dean asked wondering how Beth or he had gotten around them. 

Jess smiled. “Yeah, they are, but your old camp doesn’t have much in the way of talent to make sure they’re done right. Karen’s camp and mine have been picking up the slack for them. That’s why Beth got let right on through and had free reign of the place . . . you too from the looks of things. I gave Beth the all clear on one of the farms being empty, so she dropped the dairy farmer and his cows back at his place before she got here. That’s where most of the adults and about 500 kids went. The rest got divided up between here and the gaming outposts. I guess Kansas is keeping the sheep, pigs, and goats . . . they split the chickens, so it’ll be good to have chicken and eggs again. Good to know you’re still worried about us after how things went down . . . sorry we didn’t hear about it in time to help. I heard it was bad. We tend to steer clear of the main camp now. They’re still going out to get supplies, which was always your camp’s main occupation other than finding people, so they’ve got some things that are useful, like medicine, but we don’t see much of ‘em anymore if we can help it and just go to Karen if we need blankets or clothes. They’re working on building up some new cabins to replace the ones that got burnt down and the extras are staying at the abandoned sheep farm until the new cabins are up . . . wouldn’t let them stay here . . . none of the outposts would. We miss having you guys here. Hasn’t been the same without you even though you took off for months at a time before that.” 

Dean looked away awkwardly while he said, “Yeah, well . . . maybe we’ll come by and check on the outposts more often than we have been . . . South Dakota’s a lot closer than Kansas . . . just don’t let Bobby know we’re stayin’ in his old place.” He felt like he was letting the people here down. There were a lot of good people left. He never forgot that even if Adan had. Other than Dean wanting to have more time for Beth and their kid, Adam was a big part of the reason he’d been willing to take his brothers up on getting out of there. Adam was still out in the truck and refused to see anybody here.

Jess smiled again and said, “That’s exactly what Beth said, and I’ll tell you what I told her. You’ll always have a home here . . . She still owes me a bottle of whiskey and a weekend fishing . . . when she’s got some free time. Course she’ll have to wait a few more weeks before she can do it . . . congratulations by the way.” 

Dean glanced at her and ducked his head with a small grin he couldn’t quite hide even though he tried while he said, “Yeah . . . well, that’s why I’m chasin’ after her . . . I should probably get goin’ if I want to have a chance of catching up . . . maybe that snowstorm slowed her down some.” That was the first time he’d actually had someone congratulate him on it. People said things to Beth all the time . . . not necessarily congratulating her . . . mostly asking when she was due or if she knew whether it was a boy or a girl. Most of the time, he thought people were too afraid to ask or assume that it was his. He kind of liked that Jess said it, and he wasn’t sure why. 

“That reminds me . . . wait here.” She ran back inside her cabin and came back carrying a big box of food and some blankets and homemade pillows. “Beth thought you might follow her and asked if I could give you some supplies the way I did her. There’s plenty more where that came from . . . If you want more for your new camp, stop by here on your way back, and we’ll have more,” Jess said while handing him the box. 

“We don’t really have anything to trade with right now . . . not really sure we’ll ever have anything to trade to be honest . . . it’s supposed to be –“

“A hunter’s camp . . . I know. Beth said. The way I see it, and I know Karen sees it the same way . . . and I’ll make sure the farm and game outposts see it that way too, so you can have fish, cheese, eggs, and milk, and wild turkey, venison, fur blankets and deer leather . . . you going out there and killing monsters . . . that’s trade enough . . . we’ll help take care of you lot, so you can.” Yeah, there were a lot of really good people left. Dean wasn’t quite sure what to do with the gratitude, so he looked down and nodded again and wasn’t expecting it when she gave him a hug and said, “You take care of yourself, Dean. You’re a good man. You’ve done a lot more than I suspect you’ll ever know . . . Now go on, so you can take care of Beth and that baby . . . You’ll be an excellent father . . . looking forward to seeing how it turns out for you guys,” before she stepped back and opened the gate for him, since he was carrying way more food than he or Adam could possibly eat on their way to Nova Scotia. 

This whole area, including the outposts, felt like it was a part of him. Bobby’s place felt like Bobby’s place without Bobby, which was fine. He liked staying up in his and Beth’s old room, because that had felt like his first real room . . . but it would always be Bobby’s place, and the Kansas camp . . . It was all right, but Gabriel had built everything for them there. 

Here, Dean had been a part of building up this entire area, so it felt like he’d put part of himself into it . . . even the outposts, because he’d spent a lot of time in each one of them . . . maybe if he ever got a chance to retire, he’d come up here and put the finishing touches on his and Beth’s outpost now that the werewolves had gone somewhere else . . . give her that winter village she wanted, so the kids they were raising to be hunters could have somewhere to stay when they visited. Sam and Adam could have their own cabins too. They could all go ice fishing and watch movies and drink and listen to their vinyl’s . . . vinyl’s he needed to get from the hunter’s shack in Kansas unless Gabriel moved the whole thing to Bobby’s when he came back. Dean needed to get his car out of the Kansas camp too, and Beth’s car. They could park them up in one of Bobby’s garages. He realized it was like he was leaving parts of himself all over the country . . . kind of the way he had his whole life, and kind of the way they were leaving large groups of people all over the country now too. 

Adam helped him get the box and blankets into the truck, and then they took off after Jess gave them a quick wave goodbye. Adam didn’t flick the safety off on his gun until they were maybe 20-30 miles away from the camps. “It looks like we don’t have to worry about supply runs at the other camp . . . except for medicine and books and extra stuff for the kids . . . the outposts are gonna supply us with food, blankets, and clothes,” Dean said 10 minutes later to try and get Adam to loosen up some. 

“Yeah . . . probably riddled with smallpox.” 

“Didn’t say anything about smallpox . . . might’ve mentioned something about the plague,” Dean responded. He needed to get Adam off of this, or Adam was going to become trigger-happy and be just as likely to take out any survivors they found as he would the monsters. When that didn’t get the response he was hoping for he said, “So, I was thinkin’ . . . we’ve got a camp that’s all about food and clothes, and we’ve got a soldier camp . . . we should start up some kind of trade routes between the camps . . . keep the roads cleared between them . . . see if we can get the soldier camp to specialize in something even if it’s weapons . . . It’d be like the outposts at the Wisconsin camp, but bigger.” 

Adam looked at him like he had two heads and said, “Did you just say trade routes? I think you payed more attention to history in school than you let on . . . the only thing two of these cities will trade with us is gunfire,” before he looked back out the window. Adam wasn’t in the mood, so he’d let it go for now. 

Adam just needed to see the good in people a few times, and he’d be all right again. Adam had been all right with Carl and Rob back at Bobby’s. It was just going to take some time. Instead of pushing it, Dean started planning in his head, like he always did. It was one of the benefits of being out on the road. Lots of time to think . . . it could go wrong sometimes, but if he didn’t dwell on all the things that could go wrong or get pissed off because Beth was a 2 day drive ahead of him, it should help clear his head.

3 cities. Who would’ve thought 2 years ago that Sayner, Wisconsin, Lebanon, Kansas, and an area just outside of Sioux Falls would become the biggest cities in the US? He wondered how many people were left in what used to be the big cities. Not many, but he was sure there were some. They should start hitting those again when they started hunting again. 

The Croats were long gone in the North, and Sam’s demons looking for Dean and Beth weren’t a problem anymore. Crowley wouldn’t still have all his demons in the big cities looking for Beth after not finding her in them for so long either. They’d done a good job of clearing out pretty much all of Wisconsin and part of Minnesota in a year . . . everywhere except the big cities. Maybe they could start in Madison and Milwaukee. Then they could mark Wisconsin off their map as done and finish off Minnesota . . . they still had a lot of Minnesota to clear, a little over two-thirds of it. 

Searching for people made the job easier than if they were just going out there searching for monsters. Killing monsters they found along the way was a bonus. He didn’t really want to change the format that they had from their supply runs at the first camp . . . just maybe it’d be good to not have to go back to the camp every two weeks. 

They could stay out as long as they wanted and pick up things the people at Bobby’s might want, like books and games and maybe even enough medical supplies for everyone to have a first aid kit . . . train the kids on stitching cuts and the kinds of things every hunter knows how to fix instead of just lore, weapons, running, and climbing, like they did at the Wisconsin camp . . . get the kids going on their hunter training again, but make it more fun for them . . . Dean wasn’t quite sure how to make it fun, but Sam and Adam had plans on how to do that, so he’d let them figure that out. 

Sam could keep looking for a time spell, so they could go get that Phoenix ash and finish off Eve. They could take anybody they found in Minnesota to the Wisconsin camp. Stephen, Gwen, and Pamela were talking about heading down south . . . more action and Croats. They could drop off survivors in Kansas. 

_Maybe we’ll find enough people to set up another city . . . it could specialize in something else . . . get the electricity back up and running, and it could be a medical base or a science base if we ever find anymore scientists or doctors._ He could see the benefits of having a place like that after Beth told him what went in to making penicillin or even something like insulin. _Yeah, maybe that’s what that one will specialize in so we don’t end up back in the Dark Ages . . . We’d have science/medicine, soldiers/weapons, farmers/clothes, and hunters._

They needed to see what was going on in other parts of the world . . . Europe and Japan . . . Russia . . . China . . . all those places still had to have hunters that were saving people . . . be good to connect with them. See if they could all work on this angels and Crowley thing together . . . If they got a chance to ever check out whether Crowley’s bones were still in Scotland, they could stick around for a little while and see if they could find any hunters in Scotland, England, or Wales . . . maybe check out Ireland or head east towards France and hit mainland Europe from there . . . maybe both . . . West to Ireland then hit France. _Adam is a little bitch . . . paid attention to Geography too . . . pretty easy to do when you spent your life on the road . . . always knew the states and their capitals better than any of the other kids . . . be hard not to. I’d been to most of them._

So, that covered saving people and getting rid of Eve. If they couldn’t summon Crowley for whatever reason and Crowley’s bones still weren’t in Scotland, they could keep killing monsters and demons until they found him or went to Guam. Dean wasn’t sure what to do about the angels. He was willing to wait on it for now unless the angels actually hit the camp in Kansas, and if they did, then that screwed up his other plans and meant they’d be down a city and all those people would be dead, and that’s where thinking usually lead . . . the what could go wrong side of it. The Kansas camp was secure, but how long would that last if angels were storming the walls or trying to breech the doors to get into the bunker. It might as well be game over if that happened. 

Beth might be returning the tablets to keep them safe, but they had to keep the angel and demon tablets in case there were full-on assaults from either army. They needed Kevin to find more weapons, like those demon bombs . . . wait . . . there were weapons in those vaults in Heaven . . . they could go up and get them, and those weapons could be used against angels or demons . . . They wouldn’t need the tablets if they had those, so Beth taking the tablets back to Nova Scotia should be all right. What about Rachel? Somebody needed to wait there until she showed up, so they could get rid of her once and for all. It was the only option they had if she was the only other one in the universe that could get the tablets . . . unless Raphael decided to grab someone else and rip their soul in half.

_I still don’t know what to do with those fucking tablets? Have Kevin read what he can and destroy them now without leaving them anywhere? How will we destroy them without Cas around to drop them in volcanoes? Someone’s gonna have to stay in Nova Scotia, aren’t they?_

Dean did a double take when he glanced in the rearview mirror. _Goddamnit!_ He slammed on the breaks, threw the truck in reverse, and floored it, knowing Crowley would just teleport out of there at the last second, but it was worth a shot anyway. Wouldn’t kill Crowley, but it might make Dean feel a little better. When he got to where Crowley had been standing in the middle of the road, he stopped and told Adam to stay in the cab but to be ready for anything . . . monsters, demons . . . anything, before he grabbed his binoculars and climbed up onto the roof, so he could have a look around. 

Thermal imaging didn’t show that anything was hiding out there in the night. He didn’t hear anything either, so he climbed back into the truck. Adam asked what was going on, so he told him, and Adam snorted before he said, “I don’t know . . . I think you’ve got Crowley on the brain. How would he have found us anyway?” _I know what I saw._

Dean picked up the blades on the plow, put the truck in reverse, and kept going until he got to the road he’d been on before that one. While he was turning around, Adam tried to get him to change his mind. “Dean? What about Beth?” 

Dean shook his head. “We’re going back. If we don’t, we’ll lead him straight to her. He’s probably been following us since Bobby’s. Must’ve noticed when none of his demons checked-in . . . Call Sam. Tell him about it. Bobby needs to know. Tell him to let the outposts know too . . . give him the recipe for the demon bombs. Pretty sure he has the stuff that goes into one.” 

Adam hesitated while grabbing the Sat phone before he asked, “Are we going back to Wisconsin or –“ 

“No, they’re gonna have to deal with it themselves. Right now, Sam and 25-30 people are gonna have to try and protect 1000 kids if Crowley sends his army to Sioux Falls.” Adam called Sam and told him first before he hesitated with his thumb over the speed dial button for Bobby. After a few seconds and a deep breath, he made the call. 

He kept it straight, to the point, and only waited long enough to give Bobby the recipe for demon bombs before he hung up and said, “Dean, uh . . . why would Crowley follow us all this way and let you see him there? What if he already knows where Beth is? What if he wanted you to turn around for some reason?” 

“I’m not the only one you two geniuses led this way . . . let’s just say I’m the lesser of two evils,” Crowley said popping up in between the two of them. Dean slammed on the breaks for the second time in 10 minutes and already had his demon blade out and at Crowley’s throat by the time the truck came to a complete stop. “After everything we’ve been through –“

“Think you’re confusing me with my brother . . . you and I haven’t been through crap together . . . What do you want, Crowley?” 

Crowley looked up at the devil’s trap on the ceiling and said, “For starters . . . for you to let me out of the truck, so you and I can have a little chat without your little terrier here poking me in the ribs with his stick . . . I’d ask where he got the angel blade, but I’m guessing he borrowed it from you. You must’ve held onto it after I saw you with it at the Devil’s Gate in Wyoming.” 

_He couldn’t have been there, or he’d be dead._ Crowley rolled his eyes and said, “There was another way out . . . just had to know when to call it quits and go back home . . . that’d be before your brother arrived. If you want to make sure Beth makes it back to Nova Scotia to drop off those tablets, you’re going to want to listen to what I have to say.” _How the hell does he know where she’s going?_

“You’re stayin’ there . . . who else is followin’ us.” _You’re not gettin’ away from me again._

“What’s in it for me?” _You came to us, asshole._

“How about I don’t kill you?” 

Crowley looked less than impressed and said, “Your other girlfriend . . . less intelligent, less pleasant, less useful . . . she’s been following you since South Dakota. She hasn’t reported in to her superiors . . . yet.” _Rachel has no idea where the other tablets are. The ony way she could find the others is by following us . . . must’ve thought we’d eventually go back to Bobby’s, so she waited for us there . . . That bitch is going down tonight . . . If she hasn’t told Raphael where the South Dakota or Wisconsin camps are yet, she will._

Adam asked Crowley why he’d help them, and Crowley replied, “There are rumors of an army Raphael is creating. They’ve been circulating since before I took over as King . . . that army is the stuff of demon nightmares. I’ve been looking for it. I haven’t found it yet. The last thing any of us need is for him to have that army and the tablets.” _Last thing we need is any of you dicks getting those tablets._

“And let me guess . . . you’ll hold onto the tablets for safe keeping? Not a chance . . . you’re time is up. I’m looking forward to –‘ 

“What would you give to not have my army go on the attack against Beth?” _So, you expect me to believe that your army is just watching Beth from a distance, and she hasn’t noticed yet? Nuh uh, that army’s nowhere near her. I don’t know how you know where she’s going, but the only way you’d know where she is now is if you started following her from Kansas, and you didn’t, or you wouldn’t have been following me._ Crowley might have his army waiting for Beth in Nova Scotia, but she’d be fine until she got there . . . wouldn’t be for another 2-3 weeks in the snow, so there was still time to catch up with her. 

Dean finally had Crowley right where he wanted him. Crowley thought he’d do whatever Crowley wanted as long as there was a threat to Beth hanging over his head. He’d fallen for that enough times. He wasn’t going to do it again. “Let’s see how your intel pans out first . . . you tell me where Rachel is, and then I guess you’ll be wanting the demon tablet . . . something, like that?” 

Crowley pulled out a long ass contract and said, “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines of you help me crack Purgatory, so I can get rid of the angels . . . I’ll leave humans alone for a few generations to give you a chance to repopulate. I’m a crossroads demon. I need people to make the deals . . . I’d become obsolete if there were no humans.” 

_Crap. That’s not a bad deal . . . but I don’t make deals with demons . . . not anymore._ Dean quickly snapped the devil’s trap handcuffs he’d been holding since Crowley teleported into the truck around Crowley’s wrist and had Adam get them on the other wrist before Crowley said, “Little redundant, don’t you think?” and looked up at the ceiling again. 

“Yeah, well . . . you can move around with those on . . . can’t with the bullet, and I’m not carrying your ass after we leave the truck,” Dean replied while he put the truck in gear. He could take out two pains in the ass tonight if he played this right.


	24. There's Not Always More Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was trying to write.

Adam watched Dean give Crowley his 1st dose of blood. “Dean . . . you think maybe we should . . . I don’t know . . . see if he’s actually telling us the truth? How does he know Beth is going to Nova Scotia with the tablets? Maybe –“ 

“I don’t know how he knows where she’s going, but I do know he doesn’t know where she is right now. I’d kill him now, but if he’s human, he might be useful. Between him and Meg, we’ll know almost everything we need to know about Hell. We won’t need the demon tablet. We can just get rid of it now before it becomes a problem.” 

Adam couldn’t shake the feeling that this was the wrong way to go about this at this point in time. Maybe before Beth took off and on her own or after they caught up to her and knew she was safe, it would’ve been fine, but if Rachel was really following them, they couldn’t get close enough to Beth to find out if she was okay. Crowley’s army could be closing in on her, and if Crowley, as a demon, was the only one that could call that army off, it would be a mistake to cure him. On the other hand, Adam could also understand Dean’s urgency, because Crowley had a history of getting away from them, and they finally had a chance to turn him from being one of the biggest threats to them into an ally the way they had Meg. 

Meg might be annoying, but she was still an ally, and if it weren’t for her, they wouldn’t have found the angel tablet. Adam hadn’t given Meg much time. In some ways, he thought he would if she wasn’t human. He knew it freaked Dean out . . . made Dean think he was going to go postal at the camp or something. He wouldn’t. He just needed a break. He’d had one for a week at Bobby’s, and it’d been the most relaxed he’d felt in months. He was just done with the idea of staying in one place with the same people day in and day out . . . unless those people were one of 4 that he never got tired of being around. 

Anyway . . . without Crowley or Meg, Hell was at a loss in the leadership department, and in a way, Adam thought maybe there needed to be a balance . . . almost like if Heaven was the worst threat to them, then maybe they needed Hell to be strong, so it could help keep the angels in check, and he knew Dean was trying to find ways to get rid of those tablets, but what if there was something in the demon tablet that pertained to the things that came from the abyss in Hell? They’d need the tablet for that, and they’d need the tablet to see if there were any more things in it like those demon bombs. Meg and Crowley wouldn’t know how to make the kinds of things only God knew. 

Crowley’s plan to take the souls from Purgatory, kill all the angels, and leave humans alone for a few generations would’ve solved everything. No more angel assholes. No more demon dickheads while they were all alive . . . monsters would still be around, but those were easier to deal with than angels or demons . . . but they just couldn’t trust a demon, and making a deal with one was the last thing they should be doing. _Demons have a way of packaging things so they sound amazing, but there’s always a catch that comes back to bite you in the ass._

_So let’s say Dean’s right, and Crowley’s army is nowhere near Beth . . . it’s just waiting for her at the end of the road. It’ll take her at least 3 weeks to get there if the roads are as bad for her as they’ve been for Dean and me._

Taking a few hours to do this cure now wouldn’t hold he and Dean up for long, and if they brought a human Crowley with them, then Crowley could give them the ins and outs of what used to be his army. They could learn how to kill the hybrids. They wouldn’t actually need Crowley to stay a demon at all to do any of that. In that scenario, having Crowley be human was the best option, because even if he was a horrible human being, he’d have more incentive to be straight with them if it meant he was just as likely to be killed by the monsters in his army as any other human would be. Of course, they couldn’t leave hee until they knew where Rachel was, and they couldn’t find that out until Crowley stopped being a dick, and there were no guarantees that would stop even if he weren’t a demon. _I guess only time will tell._

7 hours later, Adam was beyond annoyed with all of Crowley’s whining. “I’m doing my walk around.” All Crowley waxed on about was how much he wanted to be loved. Halfway through his security checks, Adam looked through a window to the left side of the church and looked over his shoulder at dean. “Did Meg whine like that?”

Dean snorted while he shuffled a deck of cards near the pulpit and said, “Worse . . . she was crying. Should’ve seen Beth try to deal with that one.” 

Adam moved on to the next window and got a good look around before he said, “Somehow I don’t think Beth’s the only one that had problems dealing with a crier.” Dean kept his mouth shut, so Adam moved onto the next window and said, “Hey, did I ever tell you about the time . . . sonofabitch!” He hadn’t been expecting to see a demented face looking back in at him. He spotted that whatever it was had a gun in time and fell on the floor before it opened fire, but it hadn’t missed him by much. 

Dean was still near the front of the church somewhere, because Adam heard his voice come from that direction. “Looks like you were wrong about her not showin’.” 

Adam scrambled back to take cover against the wall under the window and waited with his gun pointed up in case she tried to crawl in through it. “Looks like you were wrong about her looking like Beth or even human . . . you’re ex-girlfriend is fugly.” 

“She probably went monster to get her fix, cuz she knew you would act like a scared little bitch.” 

Adam snorted. “Yeah, well at least I can say nobody I ever hooked up with looked like that no matter what kind of beer goggles I was wearing.” _What the hell is she doing? God, I hope she tries one of the doors behind the pulpit or the door at the side._

Both doors had guns rigged to shoot anything that came through them. But the idea was for her to see the guns and be forced to come in through the windows in the chapel or the door at the back, so they could limit her options and control the situation. Dean had a good view of both where he was at the front. “What hook ups are you talkin’ about? The ones you got after I warmed ‘em up for you or the hook ups that never happened, cuz you struck out when you went in on your own?” Adam called Dean and ass, and Dean said, “Or best wing man ever,” and that’s when a barrage of bullets came from the other side of the church. 

Adam and Dean both hit the decks at the first sounds of the glass shattering. _This place is pretty big, and the snow is pretty deep . . . How’d she get over there so fast? Or there . . . holy shit . . . how many are out there with her?_

Bullets where flying at them from all angles . . . No angels were getting inside this church with the wards that were up, but that didn’t mean angels couldn’t provide her with this kind of cover while she found a way to get in here. Except Crowley hadn’t said anything about angels being with her, and with him being all Mr. Honesty the last couple of hours, he would’ve said something if he thought that there might be angels outside the church waiting to ambush them. Crowley hadn’t, which meant angels hadn’t been with Rachel on the journey here . . . Either she contacted Raphael, and he sent reinforcements, or this was all her. 

If she contacted Raphael, then there could be 2 camps under siege right this second . . . the other thought was almost just as scary. _What if she’s like Beth and can tap into her soul, but she’s a monster, so it makes her even stronger than Beth when she does it? There’s no way Beth could handle that with her being pregnant . . . or maybe ever. We need to finish this now while we have a shot at it._ Adam tried to push himself up from the ground between the pews, so he could get to Dean. They needed to regroup, because they’d underestimated Rachel. 

It wasn’t until he looked down and saw the blood starting to drip on the floor under him that he realized he’d been shot. She’d stopped shooting, and he hadn’t heard Dean in a while, so he panicked and and started shouting for his brother. “Dean!” _Please let him be okay._ “Dean! Did she get you?” _He has to be okay._ “Dean, I’m coming to you! Just stay where you are, and I’ll . . . ” Adam used all his energy to push past the pain that was starting to hit him like a snow plow and got to his hands and knees. He wasn’t going to let himself be sidelined no matter what happened this time. He wouldn’t fail Dean the way he had Beth. 

The next thing he knew, Dean was landing on top of him as a new onslaught came from the windows. “Jesus Christ, Adam . . . stay down.” 

Adam grumbled, “Answer your damn calls sometime, and I would,” before Dean got a good look at the blood on the floor under them, and his tone changed into the one he used when he needed to be in control. 

“Where were you hit?” _Good question. It hurts everywhere._

“I don’t know.” 

Dean grabbed a knife and had Adam’s shirt cut open a few seconds after he rolled Adam over to try and find the damage himself. As soon as he found what he was looking for, he started pulling out more things he needed from his first aid kit, and Adam said, “It’s all her, Dean . . . She can do what Beth does with the soul power up now . . . except she’s a monster, so she’s even faster and stronger than Beth when she does it . . . We can’t let her find Beth . . . ever . . . Beth wouldn’t stand a chance if –“ 

“What would you know about it? You’ve never seen Beth when she does it . . . and she’s 100 times smarter than Rachel . . . Don’t worry about Beth. She’ll be fine.” 

Adam shook his head. “No, because see Rachel hates Beth, but Beth . . . she still cares about Rachel . . . She thinks of her as her evil twin, but . . . there’s a reason she still calls her a sister even after everything Rachel’s done. She wouldn’t want to send Rachel to Purgatory . . . She would’ve sent her there when she had the chance if that’s what she wanted. It’d put Beth at a disadvantage, and she can’t afford any disadvantages with something like Rachel.” 

Dean glanced at Adam, and Adam thought he was going to respond to that, but instead Dean said, “This is gonna hurt like a bitch . . . be over in a minute,” before he made a slight incision in Adam’s chest and grabbed a pair of forceps, so he could dig around inside the hole until he found the bullet. 

Adam cried out in pain and grabbed Dean’s hand to stop him. “Leave it where it is . . . I want a souvenir of whatever shit hole town this is!” 

Dean leaned closer to Adam to make him focus on him and said, “It has to come out. I nearly got it –“ before he ducked closer to shield Adam again as wood from the pew next to them splintered under a hail of bullets. 

“Did she move?” 

Dean looked down at him and went back to trying to get the bullet while he said, “Has been the whole time, Adam. Hasn’t stayed anywhere more than a few seconds . . . That’s why you think she’s tapping into her monster soul, right?” 

Adam tried to bite back another cry while he nodded and eventually sputtered out, “Yeah, I know . . . I’m not that far gone . . . just seems closer, like she’s in here with us now . . . I need my gun. If you’re doing this for me, I need to have your back.” Dean finally got the bullet out and threw it on the floor before he sprayed Adam’s wound down with something . . . Adam didn’t know what, but it stung and then went numb, and then Dean searched through his first aid kit, but after rummaging around for a minute or two he didn’t find what he needed. 

“Where the fuck is it? It was just here,“ Dean said sounding a little distressed before he got it under control and glanced at Adam again. “Look . . . I, uh . . . I’m gonna have to pack it . . . until I can find –“ 

Dean was cut off by a voice coming from the front of the church. “Looking for something, Dean?” 

Adam may have known that it wasn’t Beth, but it didn’t matter. Hearing Beth’s voice made him feel better. As long as he didn’t look at the woman standing a few rows away that he couldn’t see over the tops of the pews, he could pretend like Beth was here. He felt like he needed her. She’d been his caretaker, his partner . . . his big sister . . . ever since she saved him from that demon that had taken his Mom. He didn’t want to leave her. He didn’t want the last thing he said to her to be something he couldn’t even remember, because he thought he’d see her again in two weeks. 

Dean finally found Adam’s gun under one of the pews and handed it to him before he set about packing the bullet hole with gauze. Adam hadn’t looked at where he’d been shot once. If he looked, then it might hit him how bad it was, and he couldn’t afford to not cover Dean. He’d looked when he got shot in the woods, and he’d passed out not long after. He couldn’t leave Dean to deal with this on his own the way he had Beth.

“You know it’s amazing the things you can do when you give into it . . . things like be super strong and super fast and just better than when I thought I was human . . . I mean . . . you didn’t even know I took your magic powder until just now . . . could’ve killed you when you weren’t lookin’ . . . not the same . . . I want to watch you watch him die . . . so far it’s even better than when you watched that girl bleed out in front of you at Sam’s camp,” the voice Adam was still pretending was Beth said. “Of course you know all about giving into things, don’t you Dean? You gave into it when you were in Hell. You and me are a lot alike . . . always were.” 

Adam had a shot. Not on her face . . . on her legs that he could see moving closer from his position under the pews. Dean was fumbling to open more sterile guaze. When Adam glanced at him, he saw his blood all over Dean’s hands, and that’s why Dean couldn’t get the package open. Dean was trying to keep it together, but he was starting to lose it. 

_I can’t let Rachel keep saying whatever shit she’s saying to him just because I miss Beth. Beth would never say those things to him, and Dean hearing her voice say them has to be making this worse._ He didn’t even think about it. He acted on impulse and quickly kicked off the floor, so he could clear the pews and end up in the center isle in front of her. Adam got two good shots in on her chest and neck, but not before she shot him again in the shoulder. He brought her down, and Dean quickly scrambled over him with his own gun in hand, so he could make sure she was down for good. One shot didn’t do it, but then Dean didn’t really need to empty his magazine into her either. 

Dean went over to search her pockets and came up empty, before he went back over and looked torn on whether the gauze he had left should go in the first hole or the second. _The first one must be really bad for Dean to still be worried about it._ Dean decided to go for the shoulder. 

“I could pretend it was Beth with the voice if I didn’t listen to what it was saying . . . and then I caught some of it . . . didn’t want it to tarnish - “ Dean started packing his shoulder and had to take over on the conversation to get Adam’s attention off the pain. 

“Tarnish what? You’ll see Beth again . . . This is nothin’ . . . just need to stop the bleeding. Then I’ll get us somewhere that’ll have what we need.” 

Dean rolled Adam over to check out the exit wound in his shoulder, so Adam used the reprieve to say, “And I had to make up for what happened in the woods . . . couldn’t leave you hanging the way I did Beth.” 

Dean used the last of the gauze to start soaking up the blood in the exit wound and said, “You didn’t leave her hanging, Adam . . . just found a different way of getting Ty out of there, so she didn’t have to worry about him too.” Adam exhaled a slight laugh. That was one way of looking at it.

A few minutes later, Dean rolled Adam onto his back again, and Adam said, “Dean . . . I need you to take Beth’s amulet . . . I can’t get -” 

Dean cut him off and started putting layer upon layer of dressing on Adam’s chest, while he said, “You’ll be able to give it back to her yourself.“ 

“No, I need to see it. I need to hold onto it.” Dean stopped what he was doing and looked down at him before he nodded like he understood that Adam needed a security blanket and gave it to him. _I was supposed to give it back to you, Beth . . . the next time we were on a hunt, and you needed it . . . I was supposed to give it back to you, but I don’t think I’m gonna be able to do that this time. Only one way to find out, right?_

Adam glanced down at his chest while he clung to the amulet. There was blood everywhere . . . _Oh, God . . . I’m not gonna make it._ He looked at his hand that held the amulet . . . it was ashen . . . He shouldn’t have been able to bring Rachel down, but he had. “Tell Beth it’s not her fault . . . Rachel wasn’t Beth. I don’t want her to blame –“ 

“Adam, you’re gonna be able to tell Beth about how you sent her evil twin to Purgatory the next time you see –“ 

Adam clutched the amulet tighter and said as forcefully as he could, “Tell her . . . promise me that you’ll tell her it’s not her fault. Rachel wasn’t her.” Dean didn’t say anything one way or the other so Adam said, “It always meant a lot to me that you told me about Rachel and the prophecies that Christmas at the cabin . . . It’s what let me know I was in with you . . . wasn’t what you said so much as you leaving right after you told me . . . It let me know that you trusted me to protect her when you weren’t around . . . It was good to know I had a brother that trusted me as much as I trusted him . . . Beth’s safe from Raphael for now, cuz Rachel’s gone, right?” 

He had to take a deep breath to try and stop himself from tearing up, but it didn’t work while he said, “I wish she was here . . . I need to –“ 

“Adam . . . You’re not dyin’ . . . You’ll see Beth again.” 

Adam nodded and asked, “What about Crowley?” 

Dean glanced up to where Crowley had been sitting and said, “Got away . . . she probably let him out . . . We’ll find him again once we get you fixed up.” 

_What else does he need to know?_ “Dean . . . don’t destroy the demon tablet . . . even if you cure Crowley . . . You need to know how to defend against those things in the abyss . . . Meg and Crowley won’t know how.” 

Dean took a deep breath and glanced at him to let him know he’d keep the tablet before he added more dressing to what he’d already done, because blood was soaking through it. When Dean was done he told Adam he was gonna have to pick him up. Adam nodded, and it hurt when Dean lifted him, but he didn’t feel like expressing it. 

Halfway to the doors, Adam started to feel like the black spots in his vision were starting to take over, and he got scared that he wouldn’t have a chance to say all the things he wanted to say if this was really it. “Dean? Thanks . . . for giving me 3 extra years . . . and for being my big brother . . . I really wanted to be an uncle . . . Tell Sam it’s on him now . . . and tell him I know I’ll see him again . . . he’s got this . . . and tell . . . “

Dean wasn’t going to acknowledge that. Adam wasn’t dying. The emotions he’d been feeling ever since sometime between when he pulled the bullet out and when Adam shot Rachel were coming to the surface though. He couldn’t let Adam know how bad it was or maybe even admit it to himself. 

When Dean got Adam to the truck and put him in the front seat, he glanced at him and quickly checked for a pulse, but the semi-opened eyes said enough . . . When Dean saw the Celox sitting on the driver’s side seat of the snow plow, he had to suppress the anger he felt at himself for not bringing Adam out here sooner and quickly got himself together with a plan.

He just had to bring Adam back and use the one thing he’d needed in the church. He still had time . . . maybe he could make sure Adam had more than 3 years. They had the same blood type. He could give Adam his blood and use the Celox until he could get Adam to Kansas to see the doctor . . . He just had to get Adam’s heart started again, use the Celox, give Adam blood . . . he had to . . . he wasn’t going to give his brother a hunter’s funeral out here in the middle of nowhere on his own.


	25. The Battle Lines Are Drawn

_How the fuck did he know I was coming here? Well, fuck him. It took us a month to get here, and I’m not leaving without doing what we came here to do._ Using the night vision in my binoculars only showed part of the story, and it was a bad story, but when I switched to the thermal imaging . . . holy shit. Crowley had his army here in full force. I knew it was Crowley because there were about 10 times as many demons as there were monsters . . . but with how many monsters there were, it could’ve easily been Eve. There were tens of thousands of them, and I probably wouldn’t know how to kill most of them. 

There were 5 of us: Cameron, Abbey, Meg, Kevin, and me. The whole point of me coming here instead of Montana or Wyoming was because . . . well, it wasn’t Siberia, but it was far enough away nothing should’ve thought I’d come here. _Cas . . . if you’re not being held captive by Michael or Raphael . . . I think you and I need to have a talk about why Crowley knows where this place is._ I hadn’t seen him almost 2 months, but I still talked to him in my head quite a lot . . . a lot more than I used to do it. 

Meg took a look through my binoculars. “Well, this was a fun little road trip, we saw the sights, and now we’re going to get out of here, right?” 

Abbey wasn’t impressed. “Run away if you must, but we are not afraid. We’re –“ 

Meg rolled her eyes and said, “Tell me why it is there are so many Amazons running around outside of Purgatory again?” In this instance, they were both right and both wrong. We wouldn’t be battling this army, but we weren’t running away either. This was the safest place to put the tablets now . . . if I could get them there. 

Crowley wouldn’t want Rachel to get them and give them to Raphael. Rachel wouldn’t want to go in past this army by herself. She might call down Raphael to help, and if she did, he could take out Crowley’s army, but he wouldn’t be getting the two tablets we needed most. I’d decided to hold onto those. I wasn’t sure more than 3 tablets could fit inside the cubbyhole where the tablets were kept anyway, so I was holding onto the demon and angel tablets and getting rid of the magic, bloodsucker, and flesh eater tablets. If Raphael got ahold of them, there wasn’t much he could do with them if he never got Metatron or Kevin. Hopefully, he hadn’t gotten the former, because I knew the latter was safe with me . . . well, as safe as he could be standing a mile away from the King of Hell’s Army.

“We’re not leaving perse. We’re just going to get what we need. We’ll come back in a few days when we have it,” I said packing up my binoculars before I reversed the snow plow to get us out of there. We hadn’t seen anything on the way up to our perch a mile from the alternate plane, but if we did on our way down, monster or demon, we were going to figure out how to kill the monsters and had a plan in place for the demons. 

None of the meat suits were alive on Crowley’s side. Meg was in charge of trapping them, and I’d kill them with my blade. She had a particular dislike of demons, so it was the best job for her until Kevin finished translating the new exorcism he’d found in the tablet. Once that exorcism was translated, all of us would be able to kill a demon . . . if Kevin was right about what it did. Hm. I wondered if it’d even kill demons if they were sporting a binding sigil or disembodied. Maybe we’d keep any demons we found until he was done, so we could use them as lab rats. 

As luck would have it, we ran into a hybrid and a demon on our way back that were investigating the tracks we’d made in the snow. I pushed the pedal to the floor when I saw them in the side mirrors, but missed hitting either one as they dove out of the way. Meg was the first out of the truck and shot the demon to trap it and then shot it again just because. 

That left the berserker hybrid. Berserkers are something out of Norse mythology that looked like humans until they fought in battle. Then they became possessed with extra strength brought on by the fury of the fight and could transform into wild animals to defeat their foes . . . except this one didn’t transform into a bear or bull. It transformed into the person it was fighting against. It wasn’t part shapshifter. The silver daggers that Abbey and Cameron used on it made no impact on it whatsoever. Abbey and Cameron split its attention between them, and it kept flashing between looking like Abbey or Cameron depending on whichever one of them it faced. 

It was bizarre watching Abbey fighting a red-eyed version of herself that was even stronger than her. Then when Cameron began an assault on its back, it’d turn towards her and change its appearance to look like her. I guess it was meant to psychologically mess with you if you were fighting yourself. You wouldn’t expect it, and that might give this monster the advantage it needed to take you out in a fight. 

I stayed in the truck with Kevin and Cameron’s baby, Lily, because . . . well I had a month until I was due, and I didn’t think I should be fighting hand-to-hand with anything. I did shout for them to take its head after I thought that maybe it was part ghoul, since ghouls could shapeshift into the last human they ate, but that and the silver ideas were my only contributions to the fight. 

Abbey, who’d become quite attached to Wonder Woman, had a homemade ‘lasso of truth,’ or just a piece of rope she practiced lassoing things with whenever we stopped the truck. Kevin shook his head and said, “I don’t think I ever thought I’d see a real-life Amazon lasso anything,” as we watched her throw it over berserker-ghoul’s neck, seconds before Cameron did a cool little roll to knock it’s feet out from under it. Meg, who was done putting her demon prey in the back of the truck, came over with her machete to cut its head off. It stopped moving as soon as she did, so I had them set it on fire to see what would happen after that. It didn’t get up again and burnt down to ash, so we didn’t have any headless flaming monsters running around the place, and it wasn’t part phoenix, because nothing new rose out of the ashes. Pretty standard decapitation worked on this one. Of course it took 3 of them to bring it down, and two of them were Amazons, so it was really strong and fast. It would be a pain in the ass to fight a large number of them. 

That night, when we were about 20 miles away from the berserker skirmish, we’d set up our camp and were getting ready for dinner. Meg wasn’t particularly keen on having more fish. We’d brought a fair amount of food with us from Kansas, and Jess had given us a whole lot more. I’d insisted that we get rid of the fresh fish first, because I didn’t want to start smelling like a fishmongers stall. What good was trying to sneak up on places if monsters could smell us coming? 

We still had a lot of smoked and dried fish left, but we had a lot of tins of things too, so I tossed Meg a tin of beef stew that she could heat on the little camp stove. “You should be grateful for what you’re given,” Cameron said. Abbey and Cameron didn’t like Meg all that much. Meg didn’t really care what other people said to her. It didn’t mean she was any less paranoid about it than Adam was, but Abbey and Cameron pretty much let her know what they thought of her instead of throwing her dirty looks or talking about her behind her back, so as far as she was concerned, they weren’t a problem. 

“You two can’t tell me that you don’t want something else. Fish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner . . . not something I came back from being a demon to indulge myself with . . . give me roast pig, stews, and bread . . . The first time around, I could eat chocolate all day long, and not just because it was a status symbol . . . and as soon as I find a pack, I’m trying out cigarettes this side of being demon, because I’ve forgotten what it’s like to really smoke,” Meg said concentrating on her stew. 

“Good luck finding cigarettes . . . They’re nearly impossible to find. I think they’re the thing people raided first when the croat virus struck.” That might’ve come out more sulky, than I’d intended, because quitting and knowing they were around was one thing even though you didn’t ever plan on smoking them again, but quitting and knowing they weren’t around at all sucked. There was always that niggling voice in the back of your mind that said even if you wanted one you couldn’t have it. 

I looked at our food options and then at Abbey and Cameron. “You guys can have whatever you want.” They looked at each other before one of them went for tinned beef ravioli and the other went for beef stew the way Meg had. Kevin opted for chicken and dumplings. I settled on Spaghettios with meatballs. “So, I’m guessing Late Middle Ages,” I said on our nightly quest to find out who Meg was when she was human. 

Kevin thought about his options carefully. “I’m going with . . . Victorian era.” I think we’d both picked up on the food that Meg used to eat when she was human and that chocolate was around, but only for rich people, and tobacco was around, so it would’ve been post European settlement in the Americas. 

Meg smirked and said, “You’re both wrong.” _Hm. After the Middle Ages, but before Crowley was born._

“You’re older than Crowley, and he died in the 1700s, so I’m guessing again and going with between the 16th and 17th centuries.”

Kevin one-upped me. “I’ll go with the 16th century.” Competitive guy. He was more competitive than Sam when it came to things like this. 

Meg took a bite of her stew and said, “One of you is right and one of you is wrong.” 

I smiled. “Kevin is wrong. Mine covers both.” Kevin sighed and hung his head before he took his tin of chicken and dumplings from the camp stove. While I waited for mine to finish, I said, “You’re not that much older than Crowley if it was the 1600s . . . given your reputation and how far it goes back, I would’ve thought you were more biblical in age . . . and not European.” 

Meg shrugged. “I killed the first Eisheth and took her name because I didn’t have one . . . call it a final test from Azazel before he’d bring me into the fold.” 

I never really thought about it, but I guess waking up as a demon was like a re-birth for them. Crowley wasn’t Fergus anymore. He was just Crowley. Maybe they got to pick their own names, and if they wanted the name of an already existing demon, they had to kill it. 

Kevin chimed in and got the game back on course. “So, now we have a time. We just need a country . . . I’m going with Hungary.” I could see where this was going. If Meg was Lady Bathory, maybe it’d been a mistake letting her live if that’s what might rise to the surface again some day. 

“Nope . . . killing little girls to bathe in their blood . . . not my style. She’s a bitch of a demon by the way. Not one I’d want to meet up here. We’re lucky she got locked away in Hell when those gates got shut and is too dumb to know how to get back out,” Meg answered. I guessed France, and Meg answered, “Nuh uh, but Madame de Brinvilliers definitely did it . . . I haven’t met her myself. Went to a different part of Hell after we went through processing . . . not sure why, because you’re getting closer.” 

Kevin grinned and said, “If she killed by poisoning . . . specifically with Tofana poison, then I’m going with Italy and Giulia Tofana who invented the poison.” _I think Kevin and I both have an unhealthy knowledge of serial killers and notorious villains throughout history . . . and I don’t think it was the mother . . . Meg is all about loyalty._

“Meg’s her daughter, the one that helped her run the operations . . . the same way she helped Azazel run his operations . . . That’s why she wasn’t processed with Madame de Brinvilliers. They had different skill sets . . . First and foremost, Giulia’s daughter was loyal to her Mom and her business, while De Brinvilliers killed her family, and second . . . she didn’t actually kill people. She offered the means for people to kill other people by selling them poison, but Brinvilliers did the killing herself . . . the only thing that was the same was the poison and profiting off the murder of other people.” 

Meg was quiet before she said to herself, “Sam says I have to atone for past sins, and to do that, I have to own up to them . . . then I can start to make amends.” Then she took a deep breath and looked up at the rest of us. “You’re right. My name was Giorlama Spera . . . I liked the money. I liked the respect I got from the people on the street. I liked being able to hold it over our clients when I heard about the sudden death of one of their relatives. I thought of it as insurance, because we had a lot of powerful clients, and that meant we had a lot of power. At the time, I thought we were untouchable . . . I did everything Mommy Dearest wanted, and that bitch still sold me out right along with her . . . I didn’t break. It’s why Azazel knew I could be trusted . . . if you guys ever find a demon poison in that tablet, then I’m your woman on being able to mix it up and distribute it.” 

It was in the past. She wasn’t a demon, and she wasn’t that person anymore, or at least she was trying not to be either one. At least she hadn’t murdered her family considering how much she wanted to be in ours. Kevin asked her if she knew what happened to her Mom, and she looked distant for a couple of seconds before she said, “She went to a different part of Hell . . . I heard rumors about her . . . You don’t want to meet her. She was and is bad news, and she’s smart . . . a hell of a lot smarter than Bathory and with better connections than most demons down there.” 

I think we were done with the Hell talk for the night, because she wasn’t really up for it anymore, but it was good to get information like that from her. Like, thanks to her, I’d found out that the first demon Dean killed with the colt, the one she used to think of as her brother . . . he was an even bigger name than she was as far as demon names go. He’d been Bael, a prince of Hell, so Dean and Sam had come up against some of the biggest and baddest without even knowing it when they first started dealing with demons. 

Meg also said that Azazel had actually been a fallen angel. It explained why Azazel seemed to have so much more power than normal demons . . . He wasn’t affected by holy water, he had yellow eyes, he had the power to infiltrate dreams the way angels could. The colt was the only thing that could’ve killed him that wasn’t an angel blade, and Dean and Sam didn’t have angel blades back then. It was kind of remarkable what they’d done.


	26. Finger of God

Things were bad, but Sam had the feeling they were about to get worse, because he could see where this was heading. Right now he was sitting in a snow plow in ‘the middle of nowhere,’ Canada, watching Beth and her merry band of misfits, from a distance. Surely it’d be better if he and Dean were with them instead of waiting for things to go wrong before they did anything to help. 

They’d gotten here a few days ago, and they still hadn’t made an approach. They’d stopped by where Crowley’s army was first, so Dean could see what Beth was up against. When Dean saw Crowley’s army and knew Beth was going to do something to get around it or through it instead of taking the tablets somewhere else, he got pissed off, but he still didn’t go talk to Beth about it. Instead he bitched to Sam about it. Sam on the other hand was looking forward to seeing what she had planned. It was almost Christmas, so whatever she did could be her Christmas present to him, but he’d rather be a part of it.

Ever since Dean came back with Adam, Dean had been quiet, which wasn’t unusual. It’s how Dean had handled their Dad’s death. It didn’t help that Dean had spent about a week with Adam wrapped up in the back of the truck, while he brought him back for a hunter’s funeral at Bobby’s. He hadn’t wanted to do it in Wisconsin, because Adam hated that place now, and he hadn’t wanted want to do it in Minnesota, because he wanted to give the kids a chance to say goodbye. 

Without prompting by anyone, the kids had each thrown something on the pyre that reminded them of Adam. A lot of the things they’d paid tribute with were things Adam had given to them during hunter training at the Wisconsin camp. Adam had meant more to them than he ever knew. The part that got to Sam was watching Carrie throw an old bloody rag onto the campfire while she said something about Adam helping her train Jasper. What got to him was that it’d looked like she’d felt the same way about Adam that Adam had about her. She and Adam had missed their chance and would never have it now. 

Sam didn’t like to think about it. It made him think of all the ways he’d missed out on being a bigger part of Adam’s life. Adam was his little brother, and he was just starting to really like that, and then it was taken from him. It made it worse that in one of the few times that Dean had spoken in the last month, he’d told Sam what Adam’s last words were, and they were to him. 

Adam wanted him to be a good uncle for both of them, which hurt every time Sam thought about it. He and Adam had both been looking forward to it and had been planning all the ways they could divide up uncle responsibilities kind of the way Beth and Dean had already divided up parenting responsibilities. Adam would never be a part of that with him, and now that was all on Sam. But that wasn’t all that Adam had said. Adam, Sam’s harshest critic for most of the time Sam had known him, had said that he would see him again, because he had this. Adam thought he could be redeemed, and Sam felt like that meant he had to make sure he was, because he didn’t want to let Adam down on that. 

His first task was going to have to be stepping in as an uncle and as Dean’s brother before Dean made a big mistake. “You do know she can sense that you’re around, right?” 

“Sometimes she shuts it off if she has to concentrate on something else . . . If she has, I don’t know how she thinks she can take on Crowley’s army when the 5 of them haven’t spotted us yet,” Dean answered testily while he watched through his binoculars. Dean was finding any little thing he could to be pissed at Beth and the world to make what he was planning easier. 

“I doubt it. If anything, us sitting out here is probably distracting her from where her attention should be,” Sam tried before he addressed the real issue and added, “I never thought you were the type to abandon your responsibilities, Dean.” 

“My responsibility is to keep both of them safe, and they’ll be safer if they’re not around -”

“That’s a bunch of crap. It’s better for them or you?” Dean glared at him, but whatever he was about to say, Sam stopped by adding, “Like it or not, we’re all gonna die . . . all of us . . . if you don’t want that to happen violently to her or your child, then you need to stay with them, because it will end badly for them if you don’t . . . Besides, I thought you finally decided to stay with her this time . . . you can’t change your mind on it now.” 

Dean’s jaw clenched while he went back to looking through his binoculars. _Let’s have it Dean . . . I’ve had weeks to get prepared for this. I’m ready._ Dean started to say, “I never said –“ 

“She’s due any day now . . . I’d say it was more than implied.” 

Dean didn’t look at him and said, “So now you’re all about defending her and –“ 

“Yeah, I am. She is part of this family, and we don’t abandon family.“ When Dean didn’t respond, Sam changed gears and said, “Are you even going to tell her that Rachel is dead, so she doesn’t have to stay up her with those 4 and defend this place for no reason? If Crowley knows she’s here, then Raphael and Michael do and are watching and waiting to see what happens, so they can pick her up.” 

They were quiet for a few minutes and Sam said, “And how were you planning on –“ 

“Thought having a little soul surgery to get rid of the part that feels anything for her might get rid of the connection, so she wouldn’t be able to find me.” 

Sam turned to face Dean and said, “That’s not possible. Maybe it is with an infant, but a full-grown adult . . . no way, and if –“ 

“See, I think it is . . . I’ve been thinking that if I can’t find an angel that can do it. I bet I could find a witch that–“ 

“All right . . . let’s say it is possible . . . her side of the connection won’t let you make a change like that, so it’ll happen to her, not you.” _That’s what he wants?_ “You know what? If you’d seriously do that to her after everything else she’s been through, you’re no better than the angels that did that to her in the first place. I know you know that how she feels about you is the part that kept her from becoming a demon and held her together when she should’ve fallen apart . . . Just go. I’ll go take care of her and your child and make sure she knows its over, so she doesn’t try to find you again. Just leave her soul alone.” Sam got out of the truck and started walking towards Beth’s camp believing what he’d said. There was no way he would let Dean make that kind of a decision for her just to protect her. It would change her on a fundamental level, and nobody had the right to make that kind of decision for somebody else. Adam definitely wouldn’t have wanted that to happen just because he died. 

He heard Dean start up the truck and pull away, and it pissed Sam off even more. His brother wasn’t usually a coward. Dean should be breaking things off with her himself instead of sending his little brother in to do it for him. Hopefully, Dean wouldn’t do anything drastic if he was convinced Sam would stay with her and keep her from following him. Now Sam just had to figure out how to do that. Normally, she was pretty reasonable, but she was just starting to go from being terrified of raising her child to being scared of it . . . without Dean for support, Sam didn’t know what she’d do. 

He also hadn’t thought this through. _I shouldn’t be approaching them out of the dark . . . She’s going to shoot me again, isn’t she? Nope . . . I”ll be beheaded . . . I don’t know how they got there, but the Amazons are right behind me._ He walked right up to the campfire without incident, and Beth looked up at him with a smile before she said, “Hey, Sam . . . we were wondering how long it’d take you guys to make contact. We’re ready. We were just waiting on you. I wanted to see who would break first. Looks like you guys lost.” 

She’d turned he and Dean staking them out for days into a competition . . . a game. She was blissfully unaware that Adam was dead or that Dean was leaving her and that she was for all intents and purposes a single parent now, and looking at her . . . Sam wouldn’t have had to read the books he’d read on pregnancy to know she was T-minus any day now. 

He couldn’t tell her about Adam or Dean . . . at least not until after she’d taken those tablets back. It might distract her or cause her to go into labor. They weren’t in any kind of place for her to go into labor. She had to know Dean was driving away, and Sam had a pretty good idea of where he was going, so he said, “Yeah, Dean got tired of waiting. He wanted to go scope out the place a bit more, so he can come in as unexpected backup if we need it.” She looked like she bought it, which made him feel bad for lying to her, because she believed him at face value after all the lying he’d already done to her. This time he was doing it for her own good though.

“He’ll be ready if we do this tonight, right? I think we’re all ready to get this over with as soon as possible.” Sam nodded hesitantly, so she said, “We’ll just finish eating and go . . . I wanted Adam and Dean to take Kevin, but if Adam’s not here and Dean’s doing his own thing, then you can ride with Kevin . . . that’s all right, isn’t it?” 

She looked at Kevin, and he reluctantly nodded before she looked at Sam. It spoke volumes on how much she trusted him, because Kevin was more valuable than the tablets, but if Kevin was okay with it, Sam thought he was up to the job, so he agreed too. “What are you guys having anyway? I haven’t eaten anything but cured fish for a while now,” Sam said taking a seat on the log next to Beth. They all laughed. That’s right. They’d been given the same care package that Dean had. 

Beth pulled out a bag full of canned food while she said, “Seems to be the general consensus around here . . . Take your pick, and we’ll fill you in on our plans.”

Sam got Dean’s irritation with Beth after hearing her plan. Dean did know her pretty well. “So, you’re going in alone, and you have no way out?” Sam said recapping the parts he thought should be addressed. 

She smiled. “Trust me, Sam. I’ve got it covered. Can’t show all my cards. I’ve been trying to work on my flare.” Yeah, but she wasn’t an archangel. She couldn’t afford to have flare the way Gabriel did. He still couldn’t help himself from being the smallest bit intrigued to see how she got out of this. Maybe if Dean saw it, he would know she could take care of herself and wouldn’t leave. He’d go along with it for now. She’d do what she wanted anyway, and he could focus all his attention on protecting Kevin. It was really hard not to tell her that she didn’t have to stick around and protect the tablets, because Rachel was dead. If he said that, than he’d have to explain about Adam. He’d tell her later.

When they were all done with dinner, Beth and the others set about preparing their trucks. Traces of human blood marked the outsides of four of the trucks. The only one that didn’t have any was Beth’s. Looking at the cuts on Beth, Kevin, and Meg’s forearms, Sam assumed the blood was theirs, and they were just adding a bit more for good measure, so he helped on it as well. They were doing it to give the hungry monsters something to pay attention to other than Beth’s trucks, and they’d put extra on Abbey and Cameron’s trucks in case the monsters weren’t attracted to their trucks because they were Amazons . . . They wanted the monster’s eyes on those two trucks the most, hence the blood. 

Beth hadn’t given Sam all the specifics on what came next, but again he wanted to see how this played out, and he found himself getting excited by the intrigue and maybe the hunt when he climbed into the driver’s seat of his truck. He was glad he’d practiced on Beth’s car, because at least he knew he could drive if he had to do it, and this Mack truck was an automatic, so that’d make it easier.

They all split off and went their own directions. They’d actually spent a few days ploughing different escape routes and had been re-ploughing them and policing them and picking up demons and monsters they found . . . picking off Crowley’s army in twos and threes. Dean and Sam hadn’t seen them do any of that while they’d been staking them out, because they’d been too far away and couldn’t see beyond the drifts of snow, but it meant this group of 5 had been experimenting on how to kill the different monster hybrids. 

They had a rendezvous point that their different escape routes lead to if they ran into trouble, and as long as they all floored it, they could beat the monsters there and be gone before the snow had blown back over their tracks. Kevin would be telling him the way to get there if they needed it. They’d planned on coming back via a different network of roads to guard where the tablets were going to be housed, but with Rachel being gone, Sam would tell them afterwards that wasn’t needed. They could start tracking down Crowley’s monster army instead. Beth said it would scatter after they were done, but Sam wasn’t sure how, because Beth hadn’t wanted to ruin the surprise on that one either. Sam found himself wishing that Dean were apart of this, because he was glad he was involved. It felt good to be fighting on the right side again. He just wished he were doing it with his brother.

They pulled up to their respective posts that surrounded the rock formation where the tablets were going. When Beth gave her signal over the truck radio, Kevin smiled before he switched the channel and said, “Watch this Sam . . . we can do what only you used to be able to do, and we can do it without the demon blood.” Sam thought he was going to get more snide remarks than that before they got here, and he hadn’t, so he wasn’t expecting it, but he couldn’t fault Kevin for it either. 

Kevin started the exorcism, and Sam heard the bullhorn above them sound out with Kevin’s voice. Beth had stolen their idea on how to do with the mass exorcism in Carthage, which made Sam feel even guiltier at the thought of what happened to Jo there, but then he started to listen to what Kevin was saying. He knew a lot of exorcisms, but he’d never heard this one, and then Sam started to watch the demon army in front of them. 

When he was on the demon blood, he’d been able to see demons not in meat suits just fine, but now he had to wear hellhound glasses to see them. The exorcism they were saying wasn’t just having an effect on the demons in meat suits. It was impacting on the ones not in bodies too. 

Sam found himself sitting closer to the windshield in anticipation the further into the exorcism the rest of them got. He could pick out the demons wearing binding sigils now. If they didn’t have them, the demons were being pulled out of the bodies and trapped in a cloud above the army. The demons that had binding sigils stayed in their meat suits and started to flicker at the same time the cloud above them did. The exorcism was killing them. It wasn’t just sending them back to Hell. This would wipe out Crowley’s entire topside demon army. All Crowley would be left with were the monsters, and the monsters without demons controlling them would scatter just the way Beth had said they would. This was fantastic. They must’ve gotten it from the tablet. He wished he’d known about this before now . . . He never would’ve had to drink demon blood . . . ever. He had the feeling something this powerful would’ve worked on Lilith or Alistair. 

The raise in intensity towards the end of the exorcism matched the excitement he was feeling as the exorcism got louder and faster, and the demon cloud burned brighter. The pulsing light of 100,000 or more demons dying was bright enough that he almost had to shut his eyes, but he couldn’t look away. He could feel the energy in the air change building towards something, and then the light burst out of the cloud as the exorcism finished and every last demon fizzled into nothing. 

It was exhilarating. It was more than he could’ve ever killed at the height of his powers. This was the power of the knowledge contained in those tablets. This . . . this might change the face of the war if there was anything like this in those tablets on what to do with angels, and they had that tablet. Sam suddenly wished more than anything that he could’ve seen what Dean’s reaction to this had been. He wished he could talk with Dean about all the possibilities this opened up for them. Dean couldn’t leave after seeing something like that. 

Almost immediately, the next part of their plan kicked into gear while the monsters looked around in confusion without their demon masters around to tell them what to do. Abbey and Cameron took off in their trucks at the same time Beth did. The two Amazons made fast work of tying their steering wheels in the right position to keep the trucks going in the right direction. As soon as that was done, they wedged bricks against the foot pedals, opened their doors and rolled to safety while Beth stayed in her truck. 

All three trucks went careening towards the rock formation. There were monsters jumping out of the way or being battered by the snow plows the entire way down. Abbey and Cameron’s trucks were carrying explosives, so when they hit the rock formation from opposite sides at the same time, it culminated in a massive explosion that sent monsters fleeing away from the rocks and gave Beth an opening that she used to hop out of her truck, touch the rocks, and go invisible before the monsters even knew she was there. 

Now it was Sam and Meg’s turn. Their job was to pull the monster army apart even more. The monsters that weren’t burning or running away in fear at the explosions were starting to focus on the trucks covered in human blood. There weren’t any demons around to tell them not to go after the trucks. 

Meg threw her truck into reverse and floored it, so a horde of monsters started chasing after her truck. Sam didn’t want to go. He wanted to see what happened next, but Kevin was urging him to do the same as wendigo hybrids and other monsters Sam had never seen before started to sprint towards them in a horde. “Sam, go! I’ll take you somewhere we can watch for a minute or two . . . it’s where we’re supposed to pick up Abbey, but we can’t do it if you don’t get us there now.” Sam nodded and did the same thing Meg did, which brought a good chunk of what was left of the monster army with him too. 

When he got to the top of a hill a mile or two away from the rock formation, he pulled out his binoculars and flipped them to thermal the way Kevin suggested while they waited for Abbey. He could see Meg’s truck up on another hill on the opposite side of where he was. She was waiting for Cameron. He and Kevin both kept watch to make sure the monsters that had been following them weren’t there yet, but Sam also had part of his focus on where he knew Beth was. He suspected Kevin was doing the same, because Beth hadn’t told any of them what she was going to do to get out of this, and there were still several thousand monsters around the rock formation. Abbey got to them and hopped in the truck next to Kevin before she said breathlessly, “We should go. It’s what Beth wanted us –“ She was cut off as the wind started to pick up and blew their truck from side to side. 

Sam kept his focus on the rocks. He’d seen the wind pick up like this when she went invisible in Wyoming. The difference was that this was intentional if this was her plan to get back out. She’d learned what made it work. The sky went green in color and hail was being pelted against their truck from the northeast, and then the wind switched directions and started coming at them from the southwest. Not long after that, a funnel cloud began to form above where Beth was hidden. 

It took about 30 seconds for the funnel cloud to touch down, and then it started picking up the snow and became a full-blown snow tornado, whipping around the rock formation. From what Sam could see just before his view was obscured by the tornado, Beth was standing on top the rocks. When the tornado passed by, he could see her again. The wind was whipping her hair in all different directions, but she looked confident, like she knew she wouldn’t be touched, while she watched the tornado whip around and pick up every last monster that was left surrounding the rocks before it spiraled out like a top and picked up more monsters from along the hillsides . . . probably even the ones that had been following him and Meg. 

When the tornado had all the monsters 3 minutes later, it took off towards the East. “Where’s it going?“

Sam smiled before answering, “There’s only one thing that’s east of here. My guess is it’ll drop them straight into the ocean if they haven’t been ripped apart by whatever else that tornado picks up along the way . . . not sure how many of them can swim. Should take out a few more, and we can handle taking out the rest if they swim back to shore.” 

They’d completely dismantled Crowley’s entire operation in the span of a few minutes without any loss of life. Dean had to keep this family together. The only way to win this war was for them to strategize and fight together for each other and the humans that were left. Sam had no doubt after today that they would win as long as they stayed together.


	27. It's Time

When the tornado took off, I may or may not have clapped my hands, like an excited little kid and said, “Thanks for that . . . you sure know how to put on a good show,” before my buzz started to die down when I realized that I had no idea how I was going to get down from here. I’d wanted to have the best seats in the house, and from up here I could see everything in a panoramic view, but I hadn’t thought this part through. Hm. 

I went back to the side I’d used to get up here and looked down. It was pretty steep. I’d been lucky to get up here. I think I pulled a back muscle doing it, because now it was sore. _I’m so out of shape._ I needed to start training again as soon as I wasn’t pregnant anymore. Taking out Crowley’s demons and monster army was one thing. Fighting against angels was another thing entirely, but first I had to get down from here. I walked around the edge until I saw a place that might work. By the time I found it and sat down to try and get to a place where I could put my foot on a small ledge, Sam and Meg were returning with their trucks.

Sam laughed at me when he got out of the truck and said, “Didn’t plan for this part, huh?” 

I glanced at him with a sheepish smile. “I may need a little help.” _I can’t believe I just said that for something like this. Maybe being pregnant is making me grow as a person in more ways than one._ Abbey and Cameron didn’t waste any time in helping me down the rest of the way. My feet hit the ground, and I let myself relax a couple of seconds before saying, “So, now all we have to do is guard this place until Rachel shows up,” and sat down to rest on one of the rocks. 

“Uh, yeah . . . about that . . . you don’t need to worry about Rachel. Dean killed her. She was following him to try and find you. She should be in Purgatory now, so I was thinking we could go to the coast and wait for any monsters that try to swim back to shore.” _Huh . . . Why not say that sooner?_

“Are you okay with that?” 

Sam looked a little awkward and then exhaled a nervous breath before saying, “The last thing we need is another monster, right?” Yeah, I guess. They’d been friends though. 

“Well, if you need to talk about it, you can on our way to the coast. It’s probably better if we don’t stick around longer than necessary. We made quite a disturbance in the force, so someone in Heaven might’ve noticed . . . I’d mostly been hoping that if they did, they’d stay away when they saw what we did . . . a show of force that strong might make them think twice about making an attempt. That’s why I went big.” 

I held out my hands, so Kevin could help me get on my feet again. “How did you get up there if you can’t even stand on your own?” Sam asked after I was up. _That’s easy._

“Will and determination. I really wanted to see how that was going to go down.” I lumbered up to my truck behind Abbey. It looked like Sam wanted to drive, and Kevin was going with Meg and Cameron. At least I got Sam and Kevin to be around each other for a little while. I postponed climbing into the cab and said, “Can you call Dean over the radio and tell him we’re going east, not west? He can meet us there, or we could wait for him here if you don’t think our Godzilla monsters will be coming out of the ocean any time soon.” 

Sam seemed perplexed for a second before he said, “He’s heading west?” I nodded before I asked Abbey to help me get in the cab, and Sam said, “He, uh, he must’ve seen a few get away and is going after them. He knows where you are, so I’m sure he’ll catch up to us.” 

_If you’re going to lie to me, you’ve gotta do better than that, Sam . . . what’s going on? Don’t let him know you’re onto him. It’ll spook him. He’ll tell you in his own time._ I stopped Abbey from climbing in behind me and said, “Thanks for helping me up here. I’m pretty worn out . . . Is it okay if you ride with Meg? I need the extra space, so I can stretch my legs out across the seat.” She didn’t even question it. I’d really liked being out here with these 5 the last couple of months. 

I put my feet on the seat between Sam and me and leaned up against the door to try and get comfortable while he got us out of there. I was still fidgeting 45 minutes later when Sam said, “I, uh . . . there’s no easy way to say this, but uh . . . Adam . . . He and Dean got rid of Rachel together, but, uh . . . Adam didn’t make it. That’s why he’s not here.” 

As if my body was reacting to what he’d said before my brain did, I felt a sharp twinge and had to take a deep breath. _He doesn’t mean . . . yeah, I think he does. Adam is gone? No . . . I would’ve known. I wouldn’t have lost him and not known about it . . . I was supposed to protect him, and the other half of me killed him?_

I looked down while I tried to comprehend what Sam had said. I didn’t know how to react. I felt like I’d been punched in the abdomen both literally and figuratively. I didn’t even notice that I had lost a few tears until they fell on my hands. “I killed him?” 

Sam looked like he hadn’t expected me to say that and quickly looked at me. “No . . . you’ve always said that she’s not you. You don’t get to change your mind on it now. That’s not what he would’ve wanted . . . It was her, not you.” 

I hung my head again and asked, “What happened?” Sam filled me in on the details that he could, because he hadn’t been there, and Dean hadn’t said much to him about it. I leaned the side of my head against the back of the seat while he told me that my other half had done and how Adam was the one that had brought her down before Dean finished it. 

I didn’t say anything. I had questions, but I didn’t ask them. I’d never be able to go on a hunt with Adam again or know he had my back and vice versa. It was hardest thinking about all that time we’d spent on the road when I was training him how to hunt, or the supply runs we’d been on together at the first camp. 

I felt like I’d neglected him while I’d been off closing the gates of Hell or trying to find hunting survivors or helping shut down the Nevada camp. I’d been so stupid to take what he’d said about my soul to heart. I’d wasted time that I could have spent with him. Things had been good with us ever since we left Wisconsin, but it felt like it’d gone by too fast if that was all I was ever going to get with him down here. I blew up the cabin and abandoned my car at Lisa’s . . . they were both places where we’d spent so much time together . . . the hunter’s shack had been abandoned in Kansas unless we could get an angel to help us take it to South Dakota. I still had Bobby’s. That’s where Adam had gotten his first training. It was something, but he’d grown so much since then. He’d gone from a scared kid to a young man that spent his life learning to hunt and fight evil and live with his brothers. My heart broke while I thought about all the potential for a life he’d had left. What about Carrie? I thought about all the wasted time that couldn’t be gotten back now. To me it meant that we needed to take better care of each other, because none of us knew when our time would be up for good.

I knew that’s not the way Dean would see it. Sam had stopped the truck and told the others to go ahead while I tried to cope with everything and to give me time to get it all out without witnesses. I didn’t sob, but I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t look at Sam either. It was something private I wished I could go through on my own, but I couldn’t very well ask Sam to go stand outside in the snow while I grieved. I could grieve later when I had some time alone. 

It wasn’t fair to Sam to have to deal with me crying either, so I tried to get myself together and said, “Dean isn’t going after stray monsters . . . is he? He’s leaving . . . thinks it’s best if I’m not around him?” Sam sighed and looked out the window. They’d obviously disagreed on that or Sam wouldn’t have come to help us with Crowley’s army. 

“I thought he’d change his mind after what just happened.” 

I wiped my eyes and said, “What just happened proved to him that he was right . . . he wasn’t a part of it, and we all walked away just fine.” 

Sam deflated and was quiet for a minute before he said, “He’ll figure out that he’s wrong. He just has to come around to it on his own. You can’t follow him . . . He’ll take permanent measures to keep you away . . . It’s not anything you or he or I would want in the long run, but he wouldn’t think it through . . . he’d make a worse mistake than leaving.” I didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded bad. Whatever Dean had planned . . . if it was permanent, then I didn’t want him to do it. I’d happily go back to the back and forth if it meant he’d come back eventually. He knew how to find me when he was ready, but I hoped he didn’t take too long to sort through his crap this time. His timing on this was absolutely impeccable.

“I, uh . . . okay, Sam. I won’t follow him . . . I always told him I’d stay around as long as he wanted, and if he doesn’t want that, I won’t force him.” Sam looked like he was a mixture of sad and angry that I’d said that, and I didn’t want to hear it, so I added, ”But I need some time to myself . . . go ahead and go on with out me. We’re about 30 minutes from the coast. I should make it in a few hours,” before I opened my truck door. He didn’t like that idea, so I said, “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry,” while I grabbed my bag, several blankets, and stashed some food underneath the blankets, so Sam couldn’t see it and know I’d be gone for longer than I’d said. I wasn’t going to catch up with them in a few hours, because I was going into labor. 

I’d known it for a while . . . since before he told me about Adam. I didn’t want anybody else around me while I had a baby even more than I didn’t want anybody around to witness me crying over Adam. I’d deal with it myself. I had to . . . it looked like I was alone in all of this now. Might as well start my child’s life off the way it would go on for the foreseeable future . . . with a crappy Mom and . . . that’s it. That’s all he or she would have. 

Maybe some of the plans I had would help. I had a lot of plans that went beyond teaching him or her how to hunt. One of these blankets could be his or hers baby blanket . . . the patchwork quilt Jess gave me should be warm and snuggly . . . what else? I didn’t know how to play an instrument, but I could sing him or her to sleep until he or she could see well enough for me to be able to read to him or her . . . maybe I could find a stuffed animal on our way back to Bobby’s . . . an elephant or a seal. I needed to get a mobile to help with development. I’d eventually need to get blocks and other things for development too.

I hopped down into a giant snowdrift before Sam could stop me, but he still didn’t want to leave me there, so I tried the truth. Maybe that would scare him away. “Sam . . . this baby is coming today . . . unless you were trained as an obstetrician, I don’t want you around. Please just go.” 

Apparently the truth didn’t scare him off, because he jumped out of the truck to follow me. I was still battling with the damn snowdrift and a contraction when he got to me, so I had to listen to him. He told me I wasn’t thinking straight, because I was trying to deal with what happened with Adam and Dean too. He said he was staying with me, and if I got back in the truck, he’d find us a place to go. A house sounded better than the woods I was looking at as my target. Maybe he was right about me not thinking straight. 

“Okay, we’ll go to a house. You clear it and put wards up . . . keep the place protected in case there are monsters around . . . but I don’t want you in the room with me . . . there are just some things I don’t want to share with you,” I answered while he helped me get back in the truck.

“Yeah, there are some things I just don’t want to share with you either.” 

My water broke on our way up to the house from the snow plow. This really seemed to be it. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. Sam went in and cleared the house, set up a bedroom for me, and got around as well as he could putting up wards and laying down salt lines while I went in to go lay on the bed. “Do you know what you have to do?” he asked bringing me more pillows. 

“No, not really. I’ll figure it out,” I answered hastily. 

“Didn’t you read the books Gabriel left you?” 

“Women have been doing this for thousands of years . . . How hard can it be?” 

Something flashed across his face that was a combination of frustration at my lack of preparation and pity at my naivety before he said, “You’ll be all right for a few minutes on your own, right?” I breathed through another contraction and nodded, so he left. 

He was gone for about half an hour, and I was still in the same state. I didn’t think anything was really progressing. He asked if I needed anything, so I said, “Water . . . or snow water . . . that would be good . . . and uh, close the door behind you when you’re done.” He left for a few minutes and got the water and handed it to me, but paused before leaving. “It’s fine . . . hold up your end of the bargain, and we’ll be good,” I puffed out in the middle of another contraction. He gave me a small smile and said he’d be outside writing down what he could remember from the books he’d apparently read. I guess he wanted to give me a last second chance to look at his class notes, so I wouldn’t fail the exam. 

_I am so failing at this. I need help, and I needed it like 30 minutes ago._ Hours and hours later, it was still going on. I still didn’t want Sam in there with me, so I didn’t tell him the problems I was having. _Castiel. I need you. I’m having the baby. I think something’s wrong . . . really, really wrong. I don’t think we’re going to make it. If you’re around, I’m in a house in Nova Scotia . . . about half an hour driving time northeast of Sheet Harbor just off where Pleasant Valley road meets 224. I need help if you –_ I stopped when he appeared in the room and came over to assess what was going on. 

His expression let me know it was something serious before he asked, “Where’s Dean?” I was breathing through another contraction and answered him without saying it out loud. _There is no Dean . . . he promised he wouldn’t leave, but he’s a liar . . . he left me . . . it’s just me, my baby . . . and Sam . . . for now until he decides he needs to go be with Dean wherever the hell Dean’s gone . . . I won’t even ask where you’ve been . . . I’m just glad you’re here now . . . I need you . . . as Godfather . . . to help me . . . you and me can raise this baby, because I can’t do it alone . . . I thought I could have the baby by myself, and look at the mess I’m making. I’m going to kill it before it’s even born._

I didn’t know what the hell expression that was supposed to mean . . . maybe pity and anger . . . _Why does everyone look like that today?_ “Sam’s here?” Yeah, he’s in the other room. 

When Cas came back, he brought Sam with him to prove some kind of a point to him. “Jesus, Beth . . . why didn’t you say anything?” _That was a piss poor attempt at trying to hide how freaked out you are, Sam._ I didn’t think that question was particularly relevant to what was happening or think it helped us rectify the situation, so I didn’t answer it and focused on making sure I was covered with a damn sheet. 

“Can you find Dean through your connection?” 

I shook my head, and said, “Can’t . . . have to focus . . . so not a screaming mess.” Sam asked Cas if he could heal it just before I had a monster of a contraction and lost more blood. 

Sam didn’t even wait for Cas to answer before he said, “Just do it, Cas. Heal what you can afterwards.” Before he ran his hand through his hair and turned away in what looked like shock and. _Why is he panicking? Cas is there. Cas will make it okay._

Cas put his hand on my head in a comforting way before he leaned over me to say gently, “I will have to remove the baby . . . now . . . or neither of you will make it . . . do you understand?” _A c-section? Dean may not have a uterus, but he’ll get cut the same way I will . . . I understand. What if you cut too deep and knick the baby?_

“I will not hurt your child at all . . . Sam, you should go. You being in here makes her feel uncomfortable.” _Yeah, it really does._ Sam’s shoulders slumped while he left and closed the door behind him. As soon as he was gone, I nodded to give Cas my consent. _I trust you Cas . . . but what about you being cut off from -_ The next thing I knew I was out like a light.


	28. Becoming a Dad

Dean was almost to Maine when he got a call from Sam over the radio. Beth was going into labor. Sam tried to persuade him to come back, but when it became obvious that Sam wasn’t going to take ‘no’ for an answer, Dean stopped responding even though he listened to what Sam said in his updates that came through every so often. Sam didn’t have a whole lot to report, because Beth wasn’t letting Sam in the room with her. 

Maybe he could just go back and make sure everything was all right and then leave while she was sleeping. He could maybe get a chance to see his kid and be reminded of why he was doing this again, because by that point he’d forgotten. 6 hours. That’s how far away he was when he finally decided to go back. 

He was about half an hour away from where they were when he felt someone slicing through his lower stomach and blood started to pour out of him. Dean felt like he deserved that one. He should’ve been there. He shouldn’t have left. He should’ve turned around as soon as Sam told him she was going into labor. He would’ve only been an hour and a half away at that point. If things were bad enough they were going this way with it . . . He didn’t know how he  
was going to fix this. 

Sam would be dealing with the baby while Beth bled out. Dean could sew himself up, and that would heal the outer part of what was wrong with her, but what about the internal part. He didn’t know what to do . . . and then it healed, which meant an angel was with her, so Dean drove faster, because what if Raphael came and cut their baby out of her to take it and healed Beth to take her with him too. It wasn’t Gabriel. He thought Gabriel was in trouble the same way he thought Cas was. 

When Dean burst in through the front door of the house with a snow plow parked up outside, Sam was sitting out in the living room with his head in his hands. Sam barely even acknowledged him. All he said was, “I wouldn’t go in there . . . Cas is in with her. I don’t think he’s too happy with you at the moment.” 

_Cas is here? How the hell is he able to heal? Why the hell is he here for this and wasn’t there for Adam? Why the hell has he ignored every one of our prayers for the last 2 ½ months?_ Dean decided to go in anyway despite Sam’s warning and saw blood all over the bed. Beth was knocked out and white as the sheets she was lying on. She looked like she was barely holding on even after what Cas had done to heal her, so maybe Cas’s healing was a weak attempt at best. Dean started to walk over to her, but Cas stood in his way and held a bundle of blankets out towards him while he said, “I will take care of Beth. She’s no longer your concern.” 

Dean scoffed at that. “What are you talking about? Beth will always be my concern. I –“ 

“I will take her, and I will make sure that she never goes in search of you, so you don’t try to permanently destroy her by tearing more pieces out of her soul. Take your daughter. Where I’m taking Beth, she cannot go.” Cas distracted him by handing the bundle in his arms to Dean before he went over to the bed, put his hand on Beth’s shoulder, and transported himself and Beth out of there. 

Dean felt an icy panic grip his chest while he processed what Cas had said and felt the full weight of what it meant when he couldn’t find Beth using his tracker. Part of him had been planning on keeping track of Beth through their connection, and with Crowley’s army down, there’d been a light at the end of the tunnel on this war. When the war was over, he would’ve come back. That’d option had just been taken from him. All he saw now was a big black hole where his present and future were supposed to be. 

He looked down at his daughter for the first time. She had a lot more hair than he was expecting . . . It was dark, like Beth’s. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She was his and Beth’s. They’d made her together. Did Beth get to see her? What if his daughter never got a chance to know her Mom? How was he supposed to take care of her on his own? 

He found himself being overwhelmed by a bittersweet mix of emotions that he couldn’t hold back. Here was his daughter that he already knew he’d give his life to protect and already loved more than he thought was possible, but he’d lost her mother for her. He felt like Beth just died. She may be alive, but if he never saw her again until they were both dead, it was like she was dead, and the thought that he was all that his daughter had now scared him. 

Sam said something from behind him, but Dean didn’t hear it, because he was looking at his daughter while she slept, like she had no idea what kind of a world she’d born into. He held her closer to him while he tried to wipe his face off with the wrist of his jacket sleeve, so his brother wouldn’t see him like this. When he turned around Sam asked him where Beth was for apparently the 4th time. Dean cleared his throat and said, “Cas took her . . . said he’d keep her from trying to look from me . . . so I don’t . . . I never would’ve done it . . . I wanted someone to look out for them until this was over, and I thought you . . . I can’t find Beth. Nothing’s blocking me . . . she’s just not here,” before he looked down at his daughter again and moved to sit on the foot of the bed behind him while he tried to unsuccessfully hide what this was doing to him from Sam. 

“You were in the considering it an option stage . . . If you didn’t think there was any other way to protect Beth from you . . . yeah, you would have done it, and Cas knows that as well as I do. He was already mad before he found out about that . . . Maybe he won’t be so angry after Beth wakes up and convinces him to bring her back. In the meantime, we have to start trying to find her some kind of formula and clothes for this kind of weather . . . and come up with a name, so we know what to call her,” Sam responded after a deep sigh. 

Would he have really done the soul surgery? He didn’t think it was possible. It was just something he said to make Sam look after them. If there were a spell that had a similar result, would he have used it? Maybe in the heat of the moment, but there was no him without her anymore, so he didn’t think so. He lasted all of 6 hours before he changed his mind on just leaving her in the rearview mirror. 

“What’d Beth say when you told her?” 

Dean kept his focus on his daughter while Sam said, “You mean after I told her Adam was dead or that you were leaving her?” _Sam’s as pissed at me as Cas is. He should be. I really fucked things up this time._ “When I told her about Adam, she didn’t say much . . . just that she thought she killed him.” 

Dean looked up at Sam and asked him what he told her after she said that. Adam knew she’d think that . . . It’s the one thing Adam wanted him to do . . . make sure she knew that Adam didn’t want her to blame herself and that Adam didn’t blame her . . . he hadn’t done it. “I told her she’s always said they were different people, and she couldn’t change her mind on it now. It’s not what he would want . . . I don’t know if she believed me or not, and I didn’t have to tell her you were leaving, because she knows you well enough to know it’s what you would do. I told her she couldn’t follow you, or you’d take permanent measures to keep her away, and she said that she always told you that she’d stay as long as you wanted, and if you didn’t want that anymore, she wouldn’t force you.” Dean went back to looking at his daughter. He couldn’t look at Sam. If Beth thought he didn’t want her, she wouldn’t try to convince Cas to bring her back. 

“What went wrong here?” 

Sam was quiet for about half a minute before he said, “Cas said something about a uterine rupture . . . Even if she had told me she was having problems, there’s nothing I could’ve done . . . she would’ve died . . . they both would have.” 

He could’ve lost her during the delivery the way he’d feared. He wouldn’t have even known about it until Sam called it in over the radio, because he hadn’t been here . . . and even after he’d turned around, he’d planned on leaving again once he had a chance to see his daughter . . . He’d promised Beth that he wouldn’t leave her. Sending Sam as a substitute didn’t free him from the obligation that promise had meant to both of them. And he’d promised her that she wouldn’t have to raise their kid alone, and that’s what he’d planned on letting her do, so he’d broken that promise too. She’d never trust him again. He couldn’t fix this even if Cas did bring her back. 

Dean took a deep breath while he tried to focus on his daughter, because she was still here. He was gonna have to find a way to make sure she didn’t starve. He hadn’t even thought about that until Sam said it. She couldn’t eat solid food or anything close to solid food. Cas really hadn’t taken that into account when he took Beth away. And was he really going to have to name his daughter without Beth’s help? That didn’t seem right, but it didn’t seem right for her to not have a name either. Beth hadn’t had one for too long, and he didn’t want the same for his daughter. He was at a loss on what to do about it. 

There was a time when he’d thought he’d be ready for this. He’d planned on helping Beth figure all this stuff out, but now that his daughter was here, he had no idea what he was supposed to do, and now he didn’t have Beth to help him figure it out or do any of the things they’d planned on doing together. 

Dean felt like he couldn’t have screwed this up more if he tried, and he didn’t know how to make it right, but he could maybe start with finding something to feed his daughter. Or could he even take her outside in the cold? She was just born. The cold couldn’t be good for her. He didn’t know what to do, so he stayed where he was on the foot of the bed and decided to wait until he could figure it out. He couldn’t afford to just do things on the fly or not think them through now that he was a Dad.


	29. Three Months

Sam lumbered out of bed to the cries at 4 a.m. thinking that it was his turn. When he got out into the hall, he saw the light to Dean’s room was already on, so he stuck his head in the room to see if Dean had it. Dean was pacing the floor and trying to get his daughter to stop crying by picking things up that belonged to Beth and showing them to her. 

Nothing seemed to work, but that didn’t deter Dean. He took her over to Beth’s mini-reading room in the corner and started picking up books and holding them close enough to her that she could see the bright colors on the covers. When she stopped crying at the sight of one of the books, Dean smiled. “Your Mom loves reading. Does it all the time . . . you like this one, huh?” When Dean turned it around and glanced at the cover, his smile dropped, and he muttered, “Figures. The one kids book she has in here.” 

Dean went to put it down, and she started to cry again. He put it back in front of her, and she stopped crying as soon as he did, so Dean sighed and said, “Your Mom thinks stuff like this is funny . . . she’d think you making me read this is hilarious,” before he sat down with her in Beth’s bean bag couch and started to read _All My Friends Are Dead._

Dean always told his daughter about Beth. It’s what he talked about with her the most, and he read to her a lot more than Sam would’ve thought. Last week he’d been reading her _The Hobbit._ It’d reminded Sam of when Gabriel took him and Dean back and a 5-year old Beth read it to Gabriel. It’s probably why Dean had read it to his daughter. Listening to Dean read seemed to calm her down better than anything else, but Sam had never seen her choose a book until now. It had to be because it was a book for kids. She must want to see the drawings, because she was paying attention to the pages as Dean turned them instead of falling asleep the way she normally did. 

While Sam enjoyed seeing this side of Dean, it frustrated him. Sam thought he’d convinced Dean to let him share the responsibility on this. They’d talked about it enough over the last three months. He’d cleaned out the room between theirs and set it up for her today, and he’d thought they’d had a breakthrough, because Dean had agreed to it, but Sam noticed the crib was back in here again. He wondered when that happened, because it was in the other room when he went to sleep. 

Dean was still holding off on naming his daughter, even at this late stage, which was just one of many things that let Sam know Dean was barely holding it together. Dean wasn’t sleeping or eating. He was very possessive of his daughter and wouldn’t let anyone else tend to her or pick her up, except for Sam, but Dean also had a complete disinterest in the camp or hunting or the war at large . . . basically anything that wasn’t related to his daughter. 

On the other hand, Dean was great with her, so maybe in some ways Sam thought this was a good thing . . . not Beth being gone, but the way that Dean was coping with it was, because after Cas took Beth, most of Sam had thought Dean would drop his daughter off at the camp, grab case of whiskey, and head out on the road to kill as many monsters as he could, but Dean had gone the other way with it. 

Dean was patient and never once got frustrated when she started crying. He’d made Stephen and Pamela go pick up the doctor from the Kansas camp before they went off to start hunting, so she could move into one of the cabins and be on-call here after the baby got a little rash. The doctor had told them over the phone what to do to help it clear up, had said it was normal, and explained that everything would be fine, but that hadn’t been good enough. Dean wanted her here. 

Dean fed his daughter and changed her and made sure she had the right clothes. Sam found out that Dean had been reading the same parenting books he had. Dean hadn’t said he’d read the books, but based on the number of times that Sam had suggested something he’d read out of them and Dean had said he already knew that, Sam could safely say Dean had read them, and he knew Dean knew he’d read them. The only one that hadn’t apparently read them was Beth. 

“I can take it from here if you want. You need sleep, and she doesn’t need to be coddled so much. If she didn’t need changed or fed, then –“ Sam started to say after Dean finished reading the book, but Dean cut him off. 

“It’s fine. I’ve got this.” 

Sam had to tread carefully and started to say, “Yeah, but –“ 

“She needs to learn to sleep at night. I know. She almost made it the whole night. I was up anyway. Go back to bed, Sam.” This was another thing Sam had gotten from the books that Dean already knew and was disregarding, so Sam went back to bed determined that tomorrow he was going to find a way to make this easier on Dean. 

Maybe he should focus more on finding Beth. Wherever she was, she couldn’t get out if she hadn’t found a way to do it in three months. That or she genuinely believed Dean still didn’t want her around, so she wasn’t putting up much of a fight with Cas to be brought back. 

As luck would have it, Sam didn’t have to do much in the way of finding Beth, because a week later, Crowley showed up just outside the wards of their camp. It caused quite a fuss. The kids trapped him with a devil’s trap bullet and started to do an exorcism, but he told them that if they wanted to see Beth again, they should stop and go find Dean. 

Dean was in the middle of giving his daughter a bath and quickly handed her off to Sam before he went out to talk to Crowley. When he came back, he looked pissed off and went straight to his room to pack a bag, so Sam followed him and asked what was going on. “She’s been in Hell this whole time. Cas handed her off to Crowley while he went off to do whatever the hell it is he’s doing out there . . . And he thinks I’m bad? I don’t care what kind of a deal they have worked out. He knows what Crowley did the last time he had her . . . Crowley says he hasn’t hurt her . . . says he’ll hand her off to me if I can convince her to tell him how to get into Purgatory, cuz he knows she knows, but she won’t tell him.” 

Sam thought about it and said, “What about the other deal . . . the one he gave you before on –“

Dean started packing a second bag and said, “Off the table. Doesn’t matter. Crowley’s not getting those souls in Purgatory, and I’m getting Beth back,” before he went to reach for his daughter, and Sam stepped back with her.

“Dean. You can’t bring her with you for something like this. Leave her here, and –“ 

Dean shook his head and reached for her again while he said, “Leave her here without me when Crowley knows where she is and where I’m not? Not a chance. She’s coming with me.” 

Sam still disagreed. “You won’t even let her go outside, because you think it’s too cold, and you want to bring her with you to go meet the King of Hell? She’s safer here, Dean.” 

She’d started crying because of the tension in the room, so Dean pulled himself up to his full height and said menacingly, “Sam, you’re upsetting her. Give her to me. Now.” 

Sam handed her over when she started to squirm to get away from him. “So, that’s how you want to do this? You want to be just like Dad . . . except worse. At least he left us in towns that weren’t anywhere near where he was hunting.” If Dean hadn’t already been holding her, Sam knew he would’ve been punched by the look he got, but Dean had to try and relax, so he could get her to calm down. “What happens if she starts crying like that and lets demons or any remnants of Crowley’s monster army know where she is?” Dean ignored him and put all of his attention into soothing her. “Fine, but I’m coming with you. Jody can run things while we’re gone, and I’ll watch her while you deal with Crowley,” Sam finally conceded. 

“Be ready in 10,” Dean said going to grab the bags he’d packed before he headed down the stairs to put her coat on her.

Dean was already outside warming up the truck when Sam got downstairs, and Missouri came up to him holding the little girl out for him to take. Missouri paused and looked sad for a second before she said, “I tried telling him, but he wouldn’t listen. You need to tell him not to get his hopes up. The Beth coming back here won’t be the same . . . He has to fight to get her back, and he will, but it’s gonna take a lot of hard work.” 

Sam didn’t really know what to say to that. He’d keep it in mind once he saw Beth for himself and knew what Missouri was talking about. As he walked to the truck, he found himself wondering what the hell Cas and Crowley had done to Beth now. She was supposed to be safe with Cas . . . leaving her in Hell so Crowley could watch her didn’t exactly sound like a safer option than letting her stay with Dean and her daughter. 

Half an hour before they got to where they were going, Dean said that she was out and sped up. If nothing else, this was an important lesson on what happened if she or Dean ended up in Hell and the other was on Earth. Sam wondered if the same thing applied if one of them was in Heaven . . . Gabriel had told her not to go to Heaven without Dean, and maybe this is why. 

Pulling up to whatever doorway Crowley knew as a way to get in and out of Hell, Dean barely put the truck in park before he was out of it and telling Sam to stay there. Sam hadn’t planned on going anywhere. The truck was warded, but he wasn’t going to leave his niece in here alone or take her out there with demons around. The last thing Dean said was that if he wasn’t back in 10, then Sam was to take her and go, but not back to Bobby’s, a different safe house that Crowley wouldn’t know about. 

Sam agreed, but he didn’t have to worry about not knowing what was happening with Dean, because Dean only got about 20 feet in front of the truck before a couple of demons appeared holding onto Beth. He cracked the widow, so he could hear, but not far enough to let all the heat out. He turned to bundle his niece up a little tighter and kept his attention on the mirrors to make sure no demons came near them from the back or sides. His niece was handling this pretty well. She’d been quiet the whole time and seemed to enjoy taking in a new environment outside of Bobby’s.

Looking at Beth, Sam thought she looked the same. She looked the way she did on hunts, which meant she was focused on her surroundings and had a plan she’d come up with before they even got here, but she was waiting to see where this went first. She was in more control of those demons than the demons thought. 

It didn’t look like they’d told her that she’d be seeing Dean again. When she saw him, she didn’t really acknowledge him in any way. Sam worried that Cas had told her what Dean said about taking away part of her soul, and maybe that was why she seemed almost cold towards Dean. Threatening to mess with her soul was a pretty big thing to threaten her with after everything else she’d already endured. 

She listened while Dean asked where Crowley was, and the demons said he wouldn’t be coming after the way Dean dealt with him the last time Crowley offered him a deal. Beth relaxed a little at that. She looked like she was trying to piece together what was going on, and Sam didn’t like the thought that was starting to form in his head as to why. 

Dean raised his gun with the devil’s trap bullets to point at the demon that appeared to be in charge and said some smart ass comment about just taking her back now, and Beth sighed, like it was the worst move Dean could’ve made. Maybe it was, because a few more demons came out of the trees to surround them. 

Dean snorted and said, “You think adding a few more changes anything? None of you are making it out of here whether Crowley’s here or not,” before he shot the demon henchman to Beth’s right to make his point. Beth cocked her head to the side and watched Dean but didn’t make a move to get away from the other demon. It looked to Sam like she was still trying to assess Dean, and it added to his concerns.

When the other demons started to advance on Dean, he killed a couple with his demon killing knife before the demon next to Beth took her left hand, turned it palm up, and sliced it with a knife. Dean flinched, and blood started to drip out of his hand. He was in the middle of a fight with a demon and didn’t have time to process that it’d happened, but Beth did. 

Her eyes got big for a second, like she hadn’t been expecting that to happen. She asked the demon a question that it answered before she regained that focused look she had on hunts. Finally deciding to help Dean out, Beth quickly dropped her angel blade from her sleeve, twirled it around, and killed the demon to her right before she started to loudly say what Sam now knew as the demon killing exorcism. The demons Dean had been fighting all stopped, but there was no way out for them once the exorcism started, and a minute later, the demons all flickered out of existence. 

Dean went towards Beth after they were all gone, but she took a few steps back and kept her angel blade pointed at him to keep him away from her, which caught Dean off guard. He slumped slightly and said something to her before he holstered his gun and knife and put his hands up, so she could see he wasn’t a threat. 

Beth looked at Dean’s hand and indicated to it, like she was questioning how he’d been cut, and whatever Dean said, Beth looked confused for a second and shook her head before she took another step back. It sounded, like she said, “That doesn’t make any sense,” before she looked at the truck and maybe wanted to know who Sam was, and that confirmed to Sam what he’d already begun to suspect. 

She knew how to be a hunter, but she had no idea who Dean was. That’s how Cas had been able to hold onto her for so long, he’d taken her memories of Dean, so she wouldn’t be tempted to go looking for him. The last time Cas or Gabriel blocked her memories it took her almost 3 years to get them back. Sam glanced at Beth’s daughter and had no idea how they were going to get around this.


	30. Broken

_Why would Crowley think this guy would help him? He seems like he doesn’t like demons anymore than I do._ “This seemes important to you, but I think you’d be better off without me if that’s what happens when I’m near you.“ I looked at his bleeding hand to emphasize my point.

“It doesn’t just happen when you’re with me . . . it happens to me no matter where you are. You and me . . . we’re together. We have a daughter –“ 

I stopped him with a disbelieving smile and said, “You might, but I don’t. I don’t know you. I think you have enough problems on your own. You don’t need to add me to those . . . I’ve got an appointment somewhere else, so . . . “ 

He looked back to wave over whoever the man in the truck was before he turned back to face me and said, “You’re thinking about heading to that playground . . . to the elevator? You promised me you wouldn’t go to Heaven on your own. You always keep your promises to me. And . . . the girl Sam is bringing with him now. She’s yours and mine. We –“ 

I started backing away from him and said, “I don’t know how you know about that elevator, but if that baby is yours, you need to stay here and be with her. Go find someone else to be her mother if that’s what you were expecting Crowley to trade you in exchange for anything I know about Purgatory.“ 

It sounded harsh, but I was looking out for his and his baby’s best interests. I wasn’t bringing anybody else to Heaven. It was too dangerous, and I would not be responsible for turning that little girl into an orphan. He stopped following me, and I thought I’d made my point, but then I backed into something and looked behind me to see Cas standing there. He did not look happy.

“Hey, Cas, uh . . . haven’t seen you around in a day or two . . . I might’ve overstayed my welcome in Hell . . . I think we should go.” I touched his arm when what I’d said had no effect on him. His attention was entirely on the man he looked like he wanted to smite. A quick glance at the man told me that if he could, he would smite Cas too, and that man could fight. He had to be a hunter. I didn’t know if he had an angel blade, but I thought it was better to get Cas and go before anything happened between them. The world needed hunters and Cas. Whatever was going on here, they had history together, and I didn’t want it to escalate. 

“I’m sorry, Beth, but I need to talk to Dean.” Cas went to touch his fingers to my forehead, and I took a step back. 

“No, you’re always doing that to me, and you know I hate it. I’m not a child. I –“ 

I didn’t get a chance to finish before he disappeared. He must’ve popped up behind me and touched the back of my head, because after that everything went black.

When I woke up, I was leaning up against a door in a truck driving somewhere. Once I figured out that much, I turned my head and saw I was occupying the truck with the two men and a baby. The taller man . . . Sam, I guess, was trying to entertain her with a book. The man driving the truck, Dean . . . I was getting some strong pissed off vibes coming from his direction even though Cas was nowhere around. 

He wasn’t trying to hide being pissed off, but it was fueled in large part by what was hidden underneath all that anger, a very genuine feeling of despair and like he felt lost. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did. I sat up some and started looking out the window without addressing anyone else. I didn’t know what was going on here, but I’d figure it out eventually. If I didn’t say anything and waited long enough, one of them might tell me. Apparently Cas decided to leave me with these people for some reason, so they must be safe for me to be around, but I didn’t think I should be with them for their own good. I had other things to be doing, and I was years behind on that race. 

My little sojourn in Hell had taken more time away from me. Hell was boring. About the only exciting thing I found to do was kill the demons that sat at the DMV-like windows and told people to go to the back of the line once they got to the window. When Crowley decided I was killing too many of his demons and Cas wouldn’t let him take my angel blade from me, Crowley kicked me out of the DMV part of Hell and put me in a library with lots of books and plenty of vodka. I suppose it was like the behind the scenes of Heaven, except cozier. 

When I got bored of that, I decided to explore and see if I could find those punishing angels, because I couldn’t find anything on them in the books in that library. That’s always when Cas would come find me and take me back to the boring parts of Hell, so I could kill a few demons at the DMV windows before Crowley found out. Then it was back to the library for me. It felt like an endless cycle that lasted for decades.

I had to make up for that time I’d lost now that I was out. I didn’t even know why I was in Hell. All I knew was that Cas thought it was the safest place to put me, but I didn’t know what happened to make him think that. I didn’t understand why putting me with Crowley and both of them asking me on a fairly regular basis where Purgatory was made me safer, but I trusted Cas. 

He never let Crowley question me harder than simply asking me over a game of chess how to get into Purgatory, but I never told Crowley. I’d told Cas I knew what he was planning on doing with Purgatory and why he was working with Crowley to get it done. I wouldn’t let him know where Purgatory was either. I knew it frustrated him, but I told him it was for his own good. Things would go badly for him if he took all that power from those souls. _Maybe Cas was more fed up with me not telling him how to get into Purgatory than I thought, and that’s why he’d left me with these people._

By the time we’d stopped for the night somewhere in Illinois, nobody but Sam talking to the baby had said anything. It looked like we were all playing a waiting game. I helped set up the abandoned house and went to go watch the back door for the night. I wasn’t tired. I’d just wait for them to go to sleep and head off. Cas might want me to stay with them, but he didn’t tell me that. He knocked me out and put me with them, so as far as I was concerned, I was free to do what I wanted, not that I generally didn’t do what I wanted to do anyway. It’s why I got kicked out of Hell. 

I waited a few hours and heard Sam and Dean talking in the other room, so I got a little closer to listen. “What are you talking about, Sam? There’s no coming back from this . . . what Cas did . . . She hasn’t even looked at our daughter . . . and she deserves better than that. It’d be better if she had no Mom than one that has no interest . . . I can’t . . . I’m gonna do a walk around.” 

_I don’t really know why he thinks I’m this girl’s mother. Maybe I look like someone he lost? That’s sad._ I decided to go back to my post at the back door and watched Dean go past my window on his walk around. He looked broken. He tried to hide it when he saw me, but I saw enough before he steeled his features and kept on walking. I felt bad for him. Whatever he was going through was hard on him. It’d be better if I weren’t around to remind him of whatever he’d lost, and if he thought it was better for his daughter if I weren’t around, than I was going to head out as soon as I could.

I saw my chance in the early morning hours when Sam and Dean started arguing about changing watch shifts. Dean didn’t want to go to bed, I guess, but Sam was trying to convince him to get some sleep. Their disagreement afforded me the chance to go. Neither one of them was secretly watching me for the first time tonight, so I slipped out the back and decided to head west until I could find some kind of a vehicle to steal. 

I wasn’t great at repairs, but I could do minor things to get one running again. If the repairs went beyond my skill set, I’d just keep on walking and find the next vehicle. I had to go to Heaven. I had to get Gabriel back. Cas said he’d been caught up there, but Cas hadn’t gone to get him yet. He was waiting on me to tell him where Purgatory was, so he’d be strong enough to do it. Well, that wasn’t happening. I’d go do it myself. I’d been training with my blade in Hell, so it’s not like I was rusty. 

I got to a farm an hour or so later and climbed up the side of the barn until I got to a window, so I could have a look inside. Looked all right, but there were no vehicles, so I dropped back down and kept walking. I stopped when I heard someone behind me say, “So, that’s it? It’s really that easy for you to cut and run now?” _He’s mad that I left? I thought that’s what he wanted._

I sighed and turned around to look at Dean. “You’re better off without me –“ 

He took a step towards me and said, “Why do you keep saying that? What’d Cas tell you?” 

I shrugged and hung my head. “Just a feeling I have. Can’t really explain it. Me being around you seems to make you feel bad . . . You feel lost and like you’re . . . grieving . . . There is no light at the end of the tunnel for you, and there hasn’t been since you talked to me after we killed those demons. A hunter needs some kind of hope. A hunter who is a father needs it even more if he wants to stay alive for his child. I don’t want to be the reason that you don’t have that . . . I have to get going. My Dad needs my help. He’s all I have.” Everything I said made him feel worse in some ways and the tiniest seed of hope appeared before most of him tried to stomp it down.

He didn’t say anything else, so I turned to go thinking that was it, but he caught up and was right behind me when he said, “Cas wiped me from your mind . . . That’s why you don’t know me . . . I’ll go with you to get Gabriel back if they really have him up there.” I stopped again. 

He sounded sincere, and he knew when I said Dad that I’d meant Gabriel and that Gabriel was in Heaven, so he had to know me. He felt guilty for something and pissed off with himself and desperate to keep me talking to him. He was also feeling a lot of misery. 

I hung my head again and asked, “Why would Cas do that?“ _Would Cas really take those kinds of memories from me?_ I thought I had nobody that was human, just a couple of angels and a demon who tried to play the creepy uncle. _Do I actually have somebody . . . a few somebodies in my life that I can’t remember? Is that why I feel so alone . . . like a few big pieces are missing out of me?_ I’d been chalking that feeling up to parts of my soul being gone or me being in Hell. _No, Cas wouldn’t take something like that from me. Cas and Gabriel are my family._

Dean sighed and said, “I had a brother younger than Sam . . . His name was Adam,” he paused when I turned to face him, and it looked like at first he was hoping that name meant something to me, but it didn’t, and he got a little flustered and frustrated with himself for thinking it would before he continued, “He died. It was my fault . . . I thought it would be better for you if you didn’t have me in your life until this war was over, so I left. I didn’t want you to come lookin’ for me, and I might’ve said I’d take the part of my soul out that felt anything for you . . . the way things like that work with us . . . it wouldn’t have done it to me . . . it would’ve done it to you . . . I don’t even know if something like that is possible . . . I don’t think it is. I just said it to make sure you stayed away, and Cas took the threat seriously.” 

_Is that why Cas stuck me in Hell? Was the threat Dean posed to me that great? Then why did Cas let me go with Dean today?_ “Is Cas dead?” 

Dean shook his head. “He let you come with us. I convinced him it was the right thing to do.” He was hiding something, but what he said about Cas being alive was true. 

“How many memories are we talking here? Was it like a one night stand kind –“ I started to ask, and whatever Dean was feeling got worse, so I cut myself off. 

Dean was quiet for a few seconds and said, “Pretty much anyone that ties you to me is what he took . . . except for him, but anytime I was with you two or someone you know through me was with you two, he took all that . . . He knows you’re smart, and you have ways of going through back channels in your memories to get at ones that might lead you to what you’re lookin’ for, so he took ‘em all.” 

I was about to say Cas wouldn’t do that, so he asked, “That killing exorcism you used today. Where’d you learn it?” _That’s easy. I . . . uh, well . . ._

“The demon tablet.” I thought that was a decent answer, but he didn’t. 

“You know you can’t read what’s in those tablets. Who told you what was in it?” I shrugged and looked down. Dean felt guilty for the questions, but he wanted me to believe him more than he wanted to spare my feelings. “Kevin . . . He’s a prophet we have at the camp.” _Okay, so Kevin told me. I knew it had to be a prophet._

I glanced at Dean and asked, “Are you two close?“ 

He shook his head. “No, he’s a good kid . . . smart, but we’re not family kind of close like Adam was or Sam is.” So, not even people that were really related to him, like his brothers were gone.

Dean thought about his next question and then asked, “There was a hunt a couple years ago . . . maybe 7 months after Gabriel let you loose . . . it was a werewolf case in Washington. What happened on it?” 

I remembered that hunt, so I said, “I thought there were two, but there was a third one. It jumped down off of one of the crates towards me.” 

Dean nodded and then asked, “How’d you get out of it?” Now it seemed like he was quizzing me to see how bad it was himself. 

“I . . . used my lucky silver knife?” _And now he’s feeling heartbroken again._ I looked down and said, “I don’t know. All is I know I used my knife at some point.” 

Dean said almost more to himself than me, “So, you remember the hunts, just not anyone that did them with you . . . Do you have any idea how the Croat virus got out or what you’ve been doing in the last year and a half since it did, or did he not let you remember any of the survivors either?” 

I didn’t know how to explain it, so I said, “I know the virus got out, but . . . no I don’t know the specifics on how, and I’m not sure what I did before I was in Hell, but I think I was busy, right?” He ducked his head and nodded. I tried to give him something and said hopefully, “I closed the gates of Hell with Gabriel. I know that.” 

He got frustrated and said, “What happened at the last gate?” When I didn’t know the answer to that one, he got pissed off again and turned around to put his hands on the back of his head while he took a deep breath and tried to contain what he was feeling, but I could feel the pain coming off of him.

I didn’t know what to do, so I stood there and thought about it. There were big blanks in my history. It felt like it was decades ago though. Like I knew Crowley had caught me before Cas ever took me to him, and he beat me pretty badly, but I had no idea how I got away from him or how I ended up with him in the first place. 

I knew I was a hunter, but didn’t necessarily remember how I started or the specifics on a lot of the hunts. I never usually thought about the blanks. I just glossed over them and kept moving forward while thinking that maybe it was the same thing my mind did when it came to what happened to me in Heaven, because I still couldn’t remember much of that either. I didn’t know what to say to Dean. The longer I waited to say something, the more misery he felt. I didn’t want him to feel like that even if I didn’t know him, and I felt like a monster, because I couldn’t remember him, and if that girl in the house I left was our daughter . . . what kind of a mother did it make me if I could forget something like that?

I couldn’t talk to his back, so I sidestepped him until I was in front of him again. “I’m sorry. If I could make it better, I would, but I don’t think I can . . . I don’t want it to be bad for your daughter if I’m around . . . I know you think it’d be –“ 

I was cut off when Dean pulled me to his chest in a hug. “I shouldn’t have said that . . . is that why you were leaving?” _Yes and no. Why would I stay?_

“All I think I’ve ever had are Gabriel and Cas and an annoying King of Hell, who happens to be my chess partner . . . Gabriel, is in Prison. I finally annoyed Crowley enough that he kicked me out of Hell, and Cas . . . As far as I know, he got sick of me not telling him what he wanted, so he dumped me off with the first people he found . . . I was going to leave, so I could find Gabriel, because he’s all I have, but when I heard you say that I was bad for her, it made me think that it was the right thing to do,” I answered wondering why I was letting him hug me like this or why he thought it was okay for him to do. 

“I know this isn’t your fault . . . I’m not pissed at you. We had a life and now it’s gone . . . I just don’t know how to let it go.” He held onto me a little tighter, and it felt like a goodbye hug, and something in me kind of snapped when I thought that, because I didn’t want it to be a goodbye hug, and I didn’t know why I didn’t want that if I couldn’t remember him. 

I couldn’t stop myself from tearing up, but I didn’t want him to know that. I obviously didn’t do a good enough job hiding my being upset from him, because he said, “It’s not a goodbye. I wouldn’t have come out here to track you down and bring you back if I didn’t still want you.” 

It was nice to be wanted. Did I used to know what it was like to have something like that? I hadn’t thought that I did, but what if I did? What if this whole memory loss thing was permanent, and I couldn’t ever be myself. I’d thought I knew who I was, but maybe I didn’t. Could I be fixed? I didn’t know. Did I need to be? Probably. Would Cas do it if it could be done? I didn’t know that either. Why didn’t he give my memories back to me if he was letting me go with Dean? I’d figure that one out. 

If I stayed with Dean, I felt like it meant I would have to reflect on where the gaps in my memory were. I could ask and have the blanks filled in for me, but it wasn’t the same as remembering it for myself. It made me feel terrible, like I was faulty. I didn’t want to feel like that, and I felt confused and I didn’t want to feel like that either. 

The only thing that seemed to make it bearable was letting Dean hug me even though I didn’t understand why. It made me feel worse that I couldn’t make this better for him because from what I was picking up from his emotions, he was in turmoil. He still felt lost and a little pissed off again, but not with me this time. It was like he wanted to protect me, but he knew he couldn’t. It’d already happened, and he wanted to fix this for me. He had an idea of how he could. He really didn’t want to do it for a couple of different reasons, but I didn’t know what they were or what his idea was.


	31. Baby Steps

Dean was sitting in his room with his daughter that still didn’t have a name, so he could spend some more time with her before he left. He heard Sam approaching from the hall but didn’t acknowledge him. “Uh, Dean? I think Beth’s ready to go. She’s already sitting in the truck.” He already knew that. He could still find her anywhere without having to think about it and still knew what she was thinking when she wasn’t blocking him. 

Their connection was the one thing that was helping things right now. Well that and her being fractured . . . He’d heard her say that to his Mom that one time . . . It’d made sense of a lot of things for him. She knew she loved him. It was there. She just couldn’t feel it the way she should, because her mind had walled that part of her off and wouldn’t let her know she felt it. It’s why she did things like cry when he was going off to try and stop Sam from killing Lilith or her dreams tried to kill her in her sleep when she thought he was dead without her ever knowing why. 

That might be the only thing saving them, because her mind may not remember him, but Cas couldn’t take that part away from her. It’s just that it’d always been hard for her to understand any of that, and now she was relying on that part of her when she was around him to . . . well, it was probably the only reason she was still here, and as long as she was, she was using her side of their connection to know how he felt about things to get to know him again. 

It was all they had, because his feelings for her hadn’t changed, and he knew why he felt those things, but he couldn’t tell her, because telling her about something they did together and having her not remember it was harder than trying to muddle through meeting her all over again. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Sam asked stepping further into the room. 

_Not really. There’s only one way to find out._ “Yeah . . . gotta get that trust back . . . going on a hunt is the only way I think we can,” Dean answered while holding his daughter a little tighter. 

“If you don’t trust her than –“

Dean shot that down straight away. “Never said I didn’t trust her. I know who she is better than anyone. I know she’ll have my back. She just doesn’t know that I’ll have hers.” 

Sam sat on the bed next to him before he said, “She’s been back for a month. She hardly talks to anyone . . . I don’t think she’s ready for this yet.” 

_Yeah, well . . . staying here with a bunch of strangers all day, every day is the last thing she needs._ “She needs to get out of here. She’s not good with big crowds.” He’s not gonna drop it, is he? 

“I still don’t think you should being going on a hunt with her. Has she held –“ 

Dean shook his head. “She’s afraid she’ll break her.” 

Sam nodded in thought. “Any luck with –“ 

They’d already had this talk so many times that Dean was sick of it. “No. No names yet.” 

Sam shook his head and said, “Dean, she has to have a name. You can’t just wait for Beth to help you come up one. She’s back, and she’s not helping with her on anything.” 

_So just because she’s back, she’s supposed to suddenly be Mother of the Year? She doesn’t even remember being pregnant. She sure as hell doesn’t look like she ever was. She felt like she was in Hell for 30 years, and there are blanks all over her history before that. Having Sam chase her around trying to get her to hold the baby isn’t doing Beth any favors._

Dean glanced at Sam and said, “She’s trying . . . It’s too much for her right now,” before he stood. Sam was the one that told him when she did a runner that first night that he had to fight for Beth, but Sam had given up on her after a couple weeks. _Well, I won’t do that. She needs me more now than she ever has._

Things would be better when they got back. He didn’t know how much better, but they would. They needed some one-on-one time. She wanted to get to know him. That’s all he could ask for given the circumstances. She didn’t think she was good enough for their daughter, because she couldn’t remember her, and that’s the real reason she wouldn’t hold her. That meant something, but Sam didn’t need to know that. Sam didn’t need to know anything that Beth was thinking. That was between him and Beth. 

Beth had figured that out too . . . that he knew what she was thinking. She still blocked Missouri, but she let him know what she was thinking sometimes. That had to mean something too. It always did with her. She was starting to trust him, and Dean wanted to build on that, so he’d called up Kansas to find out if they knew of anything going on in the area and took a hunt they had in Montana. It wasn’t anything too hard, just a nest of vamps.

Sam followed him down the stairs and asked if he’d thought any more about Cas’s deal. “I’m not doing it. The last thing I need to do is break her trust and give him something like that . . . I have no guarantees he’d follow through on it, and it might make things worse if he puts those memories back,” Dean said trying to temper his anger, so his daughter wouldn’t pick up on it and get upset. She was pretty happy at the moment. He handed her to Sam and grabbed his coat and bags. 

“Dean, he’s still Cas. He’ll do it if –“ 

Dean turned around to face him and had to calm himself down again when he saw his daughter watching him. “He was Cas when he started this . . . He stopped being the Cas I know when he decided to join up with Crowley and start making deals. I’m not doing it.” He smiled when his little girl started reaching for him and babbling away. She was going to give Sam a hard time. He could already tell. “If she won’t go to sleep, play Led Zeppelin II, side 2,” Dean said before he stepped out the door and headed towards the snow plow. She took after him on the music side of things . . . probably by design. He couldn’t wait to get his car from Kansas and see what his daughter thought when she sat in her for the first time. He was thinking of maybe stopping to get his car on the way back from this hunt . . . if things went well. 

“So, this hunt . . . it’s a nest of vamps?” Beth confirmed as they left Bobby’s. Dean nodded, so she said, “In the future I saw, the vampires were all strongly connected to their Alpha, and the Alpha Vampire was a massive fan of his Mother. He probably knows what she’s planning and has all of his children in on it, so we should be able to find out from one of the vamps in this nest what Eve’s planning, or at least find out what the vampire family’s role in her plans is.” 

The holes in her memory were so messed up . . . she remembered just enough to seem like herself, but if he asked her right now how she knew that, she’d say it was in a TV show she saw, and if he asked her what the show was about, she’d say monsters or hunting, but she’d have no idea it was supposed to be about him and Sam. She was bullshitting herself and everyone else 90% of the time. No wonder she didn’t want to talk to anybody. It was a hard act to keep up for long.

Going back to the Alpha Vamp thing she’d said . . . that wasn’t a bad idea. Crowley’s monster numbers had been obliterated. Crowley might’ve had more stashed somewhere else and could still have farms turning out more, but it looked like Crowley just shifted his attention to wanting the souls in Purgatory now. They did need to start focusing their attention on Eve, because now she was the more immediate threat. The only problem was that as soon as they found out more about the Alpha Vamp, Beth would want to go on a hunt for it or Eve. Dean hoped this hunt went well, so he didn’t have to worry about trying to find a way to keep her from being involved. 

Beth glanced at him and said, “I’m broken, but I’m still a hunter. I think the best hunters are all broken. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” He smiled briefly at the last part. He used to hate when she said, ‘I’ll be fine.’ She was also thinking that he was broken too and had meant to include him in what she’d said. She wasn’t wrong. 

“Just not sure how you and me will work together on this.” He was trying to be more open with her when it was just the two of them, so she knew when she was right about something she interpreted from what he was feeling and when she was way off. As much as being open like that went against the way he was, it’s what he had to do so she could get to know him again. 

Beth smiled before she said, “I’ll have your back,” before she started blocking him from what she was thinking and turned to face him while she said, “I think I know what Cas is doing . . . I don’t want to think it, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. He’s holding my memories hostage . . . He wants you to find out from me where Purgatory is and tell him before he’ll give them back . . . I’ve already had too many things make decisions for me. I think I’m owed this one, so thanks for not trying to trick it out of me with that mind reader thing you can do. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you to pass up an opportunity like that given the circumstances.” 

He wasn’t expecting that. He also wasn’t expecting her to stop blocking him from knowing what she was thinking after she said it. She seemed to go back and forth on it. He wondered how much control she had of it at the moment. Maybe it was like when they used to play chess and she blocked him when she didn’t mean to do it, because winning chess was more important to her on some level than poker. 

“I’d do it and deal with the consequences later if I thought he would give your memories back without any side effects . . . but I don’t know what’ll happen when he gives them back . . . I don’t want it to jar loose those memories of Heaven you’re holding back. I’d rather work at this with the way things are, than have you get those back,” he answered truthfully. He wasn’t some saint that was above tricking the way into Purgatory out of her if it meant he could get their life back, and if she was going to get to know him again, then she might as well get to know what he was really like. She’d known everything about him before all this happened, and none of it had changed the way she’d felt about him. Eavesdropping on her thoughts, it looked like she liked that he thought she was good enough the way she was even if she was dysfunctional. He hadn’t thought of it like that, but maybe she was right. He’d take her however he could get her. 

She ducked her head while she picked at the hem of her jeans a little while later and said, “You should name your daughter. She needs a name. It’s not good for kids not to have a name.” She still couldn’t say ‘our’ daughter, but it didn’t bother him the way it did Sam. It was her way of letting him know she recognized that he was their daughter’s Dad and at the same time that she wasn’t worthy of being her Mom, but it didn’t mean that she didn’t want anything to do with their daughter the way Sam thought. 

“Yeah, got any ideas? We’ve just been waitin’ on you.” 

She quickly looked up at him and said, “You were waiting on me? I wish you’d told me that sooner. I’ve been researching some if you were stuck . . . might’ve been . . . ” She stopped, but Dean picked up what she was going to say, because she hadn’t blocked it. She’d been trying the names out on their daughter to see if their daughter responded to any. He was almost always with one or both of them and never once saw her do it. When was she doing that? 

She glanced at him before she looked back down. She must’ve picked up on the confusion he was feeling on when she could’ve done that, because she explained it in her head to him. _At night._ That’s why she hadn’t finished what she was saying. She thought it made her sound like she was a creep.

“Have you –“ He started to ask, but she shook her head

“No. It’s not my place to hold her. I’d do it wrong, and she’d get upset. The goal is to calm her down.” Yeah, but Dean always heard when his daughter was crying even if he’d finally let Sam have his way and put her in her own room. 

“Why haven’t I heard her? And how do you get her to calm down without picking her up?” Beth still wouldn’t look up from the hem of her jeans and shrugged. “Are you waiting outside her door?” She shook her head. He was moving his daughter back into his room if she was crying without him knowing about it, or if people could just go into her in the middle of the night without him knowing about it. Dean never wanted her in that other room anyway. Sam was just gonna have to get over it. 

Dean hadn’t meant that Beth shouldn’t be going into their daughter, but she’d picked up the gist of what he’d been thinking from what he was feeling and said, “I’m not into that self-soothing crap. All you end up with is a baby that doesn’t think it can rely on you when it cries, and that’s the only way she has to communicate. She doesn’t need to be in a different room on her own. If you want to move her back in with you, that’d be better, I think.” It wasn’t all that different to the way he thought about it. 

“Are you sleeping in her room?” 

Beth shook her head a little and said, “I can’t sleep, so I decided to start taking the night watch for her.” 

So, Beth was staying in their daughter’s room at night and making sure she was safe in a house that had more wards on it than just about anywhere else? That was an unsure, protective Mother’s instinct kicking in, or he thought it was, because that’s the way he felt as an unsure, protective Father living in the same house. But it wasn’t just that. It showed that she had more of an interest in the baby than she pretended to have. Beth must have more feelings about her daughter hidden behind that fire door than he or anybody else had thought. 

Dean was quiet for a few minutes while he thought about it and finally said, “Seriously, how are you getting her to stop crying without picking her up?” 

Beth sighed and said, “I don’t know. The first night I was there, I think I spooked her, because she wasn’t expecting a strange voice to come out of the dark and talk to her, so she stopped straight away. She mostly just watched me, while I checked her. She needed to be changed, so I did that, and then she seemed fine, but she looked like she wanted to know what I was doing there, so I sat on the ground to be at her eye level and talked to her through the bars in her crib. I told her who I was and what I’d heard about her. She seemed as dubious about the whole thing as I did. I told her about my Dad and sang one of the songs he used to sing to me when I was little, and she went back to sleep. Now she doesn’t even cry. She just wakes up and automatically looks for me. I check her to see if she needs anything, and then I try out names with her and chat about my day, and if that doesn’t work, I sing to her. That seems to work the best for making her go back to sleep.” 

Beth had a good voice, but she never let anyone hear it unless they caught her when she didn’t know they were there. He’d had things thrown at him a few times over the years when he came out of nowhere and embarrassed her about it, but now she was intentionally singing to their daughter . . . This was kind of a mind fuck for him. She barely looked at their daughter all day and barely said anything to anybody but him, but she was talking to their daughter and singing her back to sleep at night and nobody knew it. There was a hell of a lot more of her there than he’d thought. 

“Anyway. You must have some ideas on names. You’re the one that knows her,” she said continuing to pick at the hem of her jeans. He had a few ideas, but he wanted to hear what she had.

“Lay yours on me first.” She took a deep breath and gave him a few, and he found himself nixing them. She glanced back up at him and smirked when he finally caught where she’d done her research and said, “You’re just listing off comic book characters.” 

She gave him a small shrug and said, “What? They all have green eyes, and I think there’s like a 70% chance that hers will be too . . . all right . . . last one Hope . . . as in Hope Summers . . . Hope Summers was a nomad for a long time like us . . . but, uh, I’m telling you now that she wants her name to be Rogue.” 

She’d looked back down again when she was halfway through saying that, so he didn’t draw attention to the ‘like us’ thing she threw out there, because she already knew she’d said it. Hope wasn’t bad. It was better than a lot of names he’d come up with so far. He’d have to test Rogue out. He didn’t buy that was the name their daughter wanted, but then he thought their daughter had gotten Beth’s sense of humor, so she would pick a name like Rogue just so he’d have to say, ‘and this is my daughter, Rogue.’ Rogue Winchester. Sounded like she a renegade rifle. No, he was putting his foot down on that one. 

Beth took a deep breath and said, “Okay, now it’s your turn.” He knew this hunting trip was a good idea, and they hadn’t even gotten to the hunt yet. They were finally coming up with a name together, and she was the one that had started it. They’d gone over the thing Cas wanted in exchange for her memories and agreed on it, and she’d brought that up too. He’d get her back again. He was getting her back. It’d just take some time.


	32. New York

Sam watched from the window as Dean pulled the snow plow into the driveway and the kids at the camp came out of the woodwork to greet him. They seemed to . . . not really steer clear of Beth, but it seemed like they thought she was fragile and pitied her, and she could tell. She didn’t know how to respond to it, so she looked down until Jenna asked Dean something, and Dean grinned and started talking. The teenagers looked at Beth, and then a few of them went over and gave her a hug and looked happy. Beth didn’t look like she knew how to respond to that either, but put on an act to make it seem like she did before the kids could notice. 

Sam looked at his and his niece’s bags that were by the door. He thought this was a bad idea, but Dean had called and told him to get them both ready, because they were hitting the road for a while the way some of the other hunters had. Dean just had to make a quick stop in Kansas to pick up the Impala and then he, Sam, Beth and the baby would head out like everything was fine. 

Sam wished he’d never come up with the idea of going back out on the road. He’d come up with it before Adam died and before Beth lost her mind. Dean must’ve lost his mind too if this was the plan now, and Sam must’ve lost his as well, because he was going along with it. “At least we’ll all be crazy together,” Sam said to his niece.

Sam waited outside the walls of Kansas with the baby while Dean and Beth went inside. He thought that staying away from these people was for the best, so they weren’t reminded of what he’d done to them. Beth didn’t remember any of that, and as far as Sam knew, Dean hadn’t filled her in on it. 

It was only just now starting to hit Sam that he’d gotten screwed over too when Beth’s memories were taken. How was he was supposed to get healed if she didn’t remember being the one to permanently maim him or why she’d done it? He guessed he could wait a little longer on it. He had to anyway. The only angel they knew who could and would heal him was Gabriel, and apparently, Dean and Beth had found out a few things about Eve’s operation from the vamps they’d questioned in Montana, so Dean had convinced Beth not to go looking for Gabriel until after they took care of Eve. 

Sam looked down at his niece while she watched a flock of birds flying above them. She was adorable. Beth was doing everything she could not to look at her baby. Sam found it frustrating. He was frustrated with Cas for putting Beth in this position. He was frustrated with Beth for not trying harder for the sake of the baby, and he was frustrated with Dean, because Dean was sticking his head in the sand and acting like there wasn’t something seriously wrong with Beth. How was Beth supposed to get any better if they ignored it? 

Maybe Dean was pushing this hunting trip, so Beth had to be confronted with her baby for longer periods of time in an enclosed space. If that’s what this was, then Sam would hold off on saying anything and see how this played out, but he wasn’t going to wait around forever on it either. Dean might be the parent, but Sam thought that as the uncle, it was his job to step in and take care of things that Dean missed or intentionally did wrong just to make things easier for Beth.

Driving the Impala out the front gates of the the Kansas camp, Dean pulled it up next to the snow plow, and as he and Beth got out, Sam heard Beth say, “I can’t believe you’d show me my car and then say I can’t drive it.” _So, Beth is already more attached to her car than she is her baby? Great._

Dean shook his head and said, “Can’t take yours. It’s not right for the snow up there.” 

“Fine. But I’m driving the snow plow to clear the roads in front of your car, so wherever we’re going, I’ll get there first.” When Dean turned to argue that, she added, “This isn’t exactly a ‘Where we’re going, we don’t need roads,’ kind of situation. You can’t do both. Of course you could let Sam drive your car, but somehow, I don’t see you letting that happen.” Dean retorted by saying something that Sam didn’t catch, and it made Beth’s smirk turn into a grin. When Dean turned back around, Sam caught that the whole exchange had lightened an already lighter than recent times Dean. Dean had liked something about the interaction he’d just had with Beth, but only Dean knew why. 

Beth went back to the Impala to grab a big pile of books and was transporting them to the snow plow when Dean told Sam that Sam and the baby were riding with him. _So, Beth isn’t going to be riding in the same vehicle as her daughter? What is the point of all this?_

Sam opened his mouth to say what he was thinking, and Dean said, “Someone’s gotta drive the truck, and it’s good for Beth to do stuff she already knows how to do . . . This isn’t supposed to be a Mom training exercise. We can’t push her on it.” Yeah, well they had to stop somewhere, and he’d make sure Beth saw her daughter at all times wherever they stopped. He’d come around to the idea that this was a Mom training exercise, and Dean saying it wasn’t didn’t change that for him.

Sitting shotgun in the Impala felt a lot better than Sam had thought it would. He hadn’t done it since he and Dean came back from killing Lucifer. The last year and a half felt a lot longer than the couple of years he’d hadn’t sat in this car when he’d been away at college. “So, what’s the plan now? 

“That lead we got on the Changeling Alpha matches up with what the computer is starting to show in New York. We’re going after her while Kansas keeps track of what the Alpha Vamp is doing and then we’re goin’ after him . . . Then we’re taking out Eve. We don’t want any of her generals keeping up the fight once she’s gone,” Dean answered as he watched his daughter’s reaction to him picking up speed, so they could pass Beth out. She loved it. She was smiling and turning her head from side to side to look out the side windows. She was definitely Dean’s daughter anyway. That and Sam feeling like he was back where he was supposed to be with Dean in the Impala put Sam in a great mood. Probably the best one he’d been in for a long time. Maybe going out on the road wasn’t such a bad idea.

As soon as they hit the snow in what Sam thought must be record time, Beth took the lead, and they headed east. The Alpha Changeling was near New York City. She’d only stay somewhere like that to start building up her army if she found a food source, so Sam thought that meant that there were still people alive there. He wondered where they’d put the survivors when they found them. Maybe they could give them a choice. Did they want to be farmers or soldiers? He wondered if there were any hunters they didn’t know there. Maybe they’d find enough people to start up a 4th city. Maybe they could get the power back up and running along the Eastern seaboard. He knew Dean wanted to do that soon, and it was a good idea. If most of the rest of the country had power, then people in the camps wouldn’t stand out as much at night with their electricity from generators. 

It took them a few weeks to get to New Jersey. Dean always had to call Beth and tell her when to stop, or she would’ve kept driving through the night. She never slept when they stopped either. She always grabbed a few books and set herself up somewhere, so she could research whatever it was she was researching. Dean wouldn’t tell Sam what it was and told him if he wanted to know to go ask her. 

Sam was starting to get the feeling that while this wasn’t a training exercise for Beth to become a Mom. It was supposed to be a training exercise for Sam to get used to the new Beth. He hadn’t realized he was finding it this difficult to be around her, but he was, because he couldn’t bring himself to even ask her something as easy as that. Some of it was because he’d just started to get to really like her before all this happened, and some of it was her lack of interest in the baby, and maybe it also felt like she was taking Dean’s attention away from where it should be . . . on the baby. Beth was supposed to be the grown up here. 

Maybe some of it was because Sam knew that when they got to New York, he’d have to stay behind at whatever motel they found and take care of the baby. It added to Sam’s frustration the closer they got to New York. The only reason he was even here was probably to be a babysitter. He’d finally started to come to terms with the fact that he was a hunter and that his place was beside Dean on hunts . . . even if he was limited in his movements . . . yeah, he knew it was better for Dean if he was fully functional, but he wasn’t as bad as he used to be. He barely needed the cane anymore. 

Sam looked at the motel where they were staying in disgust while he took a crying baby out of the car seat in the back of the Impala. Dean took his daughter, and she immediately stopped crying. Dean didn’t say anything to Sam before he carried her towards the abandoned motel, but the look he gave Sam said that Sam was the one that had upset her. Maybe he had been. She was good at knowing what people’s moods were and didn’t like conflict, but maybe she was just tired and wanted her Dad.

Sam followed Dean into the motel after Beth found a way in for them past the snow. While Beth started laying down salt lines and warding the place with wards Sam knew and a few new ones she must’ve picked up along the way, Dean fed the baby, got her changed and ready for bed. There’d been a recent change in she and Dean’s nightly ritual. It started when they came out on the road . . . Every night just before bed, Dean would say a few things to his daughter that nobody else could hear, and she would smile up at him every so often, like she understood what he was saying. 

When she did that, Dean tried not to laugh before he said a few more things to her until she smiled again and then Dean would shake his head and carry her to the bed, so he could pull her into his lap and read her favorite book to her. Tonight when Dean was done with his routine, he and Beth shared a look, and Beth nodded, so Dean said quietly, “All right, Sam . . . let’s go.” 

Sam had been settling in for the night and hadn’t expected that. “What?” 

Dean headed for the window they’d climbed in through and said, “I’m tired of seeing your bitch face every time I talk about this Alpha. You’re comin’ with me.” 

Sam glanced at Beth who’d gone back to reading from her place on the floor and went over to Dean to say almost quietly enough she couldn’t hear, “Dean, you can’t be serious . . . I’ll stay, and –“ 

“She’s got this. They’ll be fine.” 

Sam knew for a fact that this would take longer than one night. They would be gone for a few days. Beth didn’t know how to feed or change her daughter. They’d come back and he was 100% convinced that his niece would still be lying on the bed where Dean had left her. 

Sam went to grab his bags wishing he hadn’t been pouting about not going on this hunt. He hadn’t thought about what Dean’s solution to that would be. There was no way they should be leaving Beth alone with the baby, but Dean was already out the window and waiting for him, so Sam stopped before he left and told Beth a lengthy list of things she needed to make sure got done and what to do when the baby started crying. 

Beth didn’t take her eyes off the book she was reading once and just nodded when he was finished. He didn’t think that anything he’d said had actually made a difference and was about to tell her to just go in his place when Dean stuck his head back in the room and told him to start moving, or he’d come back in there and drag him out, so Sam hesitantly went to the window wondering why Dean was getting pissed off with him when he was the only one that was looking out for Dean’s baby at the moment. 

The Changeling Alpha wasn’t where the Kansas camp had said she was. She’d moved onto a different part of the city for the first time in weeks. Maybe it was bad luck, but maybe she knew they were coming . . . Sam wasn’t sure how. Maybe she had changelings stationed around the city that saw him and Dean before he and Dean saw them. If she did, than she was organized in a way that he hadn’t anticipated, and Dean saying she was like a general wasn’t wrong. 

In some ways, Sam was glad the Alpha Changeling wasn’t where they’d thought she’d be. It wasn’t until he and Dean took off from the motel that he realized that he hadn’t been on a hunt with Dean since they went to kill Lucifer. Killing Croats around the bunker in Kansas didn’t count. Now he wondered if he was actually up to the job. He didn’t want to let Dean down, but there was a part of him that wondered if there were some things that ‘mind over matter’ just couldn’t overcome. 

Now he felt like he had to pass some kind of test. Not a test from Dean to see if he was up for this, but a test he was setting for himself, a test he had more time to prepare for if they had to spend more time trying to find the Alpha Changeling. They searched where she’d been to see what she left behind. Their search focused on the underground tunnels that connected some building blocks in this part of the city. It wasn’t the sewer system or even the subway system . . . maybe they were a part of some kind of old fallout shelter system under the city. 

They found a lot of bodies and some changeling mothers that had to be taken out. Any changeling children those changeling mothers had should go up in flames when their mothers did no matter where they were in the city. Sam felt like he passed the flamethrower test. He only almost set Dean’s sleeve on fire once when Dean was fighting a changeling mother, but almost didn’t count. Too bad Dean didn’t think so. It didn’t matter. It was his test not Dean’s.

When the changeling mothers were gone, they needed to do a final sweep to make sure there weren’t any victims that they’d missed when their attention was on the mothers. It was dark and damp down here with a lot of twists and turns . . . exactly the kind of place where they could miss someone that needed help if they weren’t thorough. They were nearing the end of one of the tunnels, and Sam caught movement when his flashlight skimmed past one of the semi-opened doorways. 

He indicated for Dean to wait, and they stood on opposite sides of the doorway before Dean glanced at Sam to make sure he was ready to follow after Dean went in. Sam gave him a nod, and Dean took point. They quickly stormed the room, and the light from their flashlights fell on the faces of about 15 children. They’d found a lot of dead kids down here already, so finding that many live ones was . . . good and bad . . . good if they were human, but the odds were that they weren’t. Dean went after a few of the kids that ran out the back door of the room, and Sam was left standing there to babysit what were probably a bunch of changeling children. He’d wait to check until Dean was back. He didn’t want to lose any.

About 20 minutes later, Dean came back with 5 more kids. They corralled them out into the tunnel where there was a little more room, and Dean told the kids he needed to run some tests with them. Dean started with silver and holy water, but saved the test they were really interested in until the end to get the kids to relax before he pulled out a small mirror. After each kid was done with the tests, Dean sent him or her to 1 of 4 different groups. Sam didn’t know if any were changelings or humans, because Dean wasn’t giving anything away. 

When the last kid was done, Dean indicated for Sam to lead the way out, so Sam did. It wasn’t until he was about 200 feet away and had gone around a corner that he turned back and noticed that Dean and over half of the kids were missing. He kept the 7 kids that were with him moving when he saw the orange glow of fire come from behind a different corner that they’d passed a couple of minutes ago. A couple of seconds later, the screeching started as the changeling children died. The kids Sam was with tried to run back to see what the noise was, but by then Dean was there and helped him get them heading towards the exit again. They didn’t know how many more changeling mothers were still down here if there’d been that many changeling children left. It could be 1 or 2 or 4, but however many there were, they’d be mad that their kids were dead. 

And yeah . . . that’s exactly the way the two that were blocking their exit looked. Dean shouted for Sam to get the kids out of the tunnel, while he held the two changeling mothers back with his flamethrower, and Sam went to the nearest ladder. He went up it first to make sure there was nothing waiting for them up there. It looked like they were in the clear, so he told the kids to follow him up, but none of them did. They were all watching Dean and the mother changelings, and then Dean torched one of the mothers. _Crap. They shouldn’t be watching this._

Sam went back down the ladder and picked up the kid closest to him with his right arm, so he could use his left arm to climb back up the ladder with her and deposit her on the ground outside. He told her to stay there and turned back around to head back down in time to see one of the kids pick up a pipe and whack Dean in the back with it. It was just a weak human kid, so it didn’t do much damage, but it distracted Dean enough that the changeling mother was able to pick Dean up and throw him out of Sam’s line of vision. _Crap._

By the time Sam was halfway down the ladder, the changeling mother was making sure Dean stayed down, and the 6 kids were all kicking him. If Sam didn’t put a stop to it soon, those kids were in for a world of hurt, because Dean would eventually say, ‘fuck it,’ and knock a couple of their head against the wall. Well, if Dean didn’t, Sam might. Sam torched the changeling mother from the ladder, and then finished climbing down, so he could pick one of the kids kicking Dean. 

She struggled with him, but the other kids stopped their assault, and Dean was able to get up and grab ahold of 2 more of them. The three kids nobody was holding onto started to run off through the tunnels, but Dean stopped them when he yelled. “Keep on running if you want to start eating the rats down here to survive, cuz those bitches aren’t coming back after we killed the others . . . or you could come with us, have some real food, and live somewhere that doesn’t look like a sewer!” 

The oldest of the kids that had started to make a break for it stopped, so the others did too. Sam watched the kid, who was only 11 at most, work through what Dean had said, and decide to stay, but there was no warmth or happiness that they were being rescued. Dean had hit the right notes on getting through to him, but a kid that age, shouldn’t be that cold and calculated. 

“What’s wrong with them, Dean?” Sam whispered when they were all out. 

Dean sighed, while he looked at the dirty, hungry faces of the kids that still looked like they would kill him and Sam if they could. “If I had to guess, all their parents are dead, so they found new ones. I think they were supplying the changeling mothers with the all the kids we already found down there in exchange for food and not being fed on by the mothers . . . none of them have bites that I saw.” 

That sucked. There were so many dead kids down there. There piles of them in some of the rooms he and Dean had checked, and these kids . . . they were responsible for that? Things used to be so much easier and a lot less gray. Dean was obviously used to living in the gray, because it didn’t seem to faze him much, but Sam had gone from the black into the white and was trying to stay out of the gray. 

“We can’t leave them here,” Sam responded when Dean started to head towards the truck.

“We’re not. We’ll give ‘em a lift out of town, find somewhere to put them out in the country that’s safe, give them some food, and tell ‘em to stay put. Then we’ll take that Alpha Changeling bitch out, and come back for them,” Dean answered as he opened the hatch at the back of the truck and indicated for the kids to start climbing into it. 

_Why?_ Sam didn’t really want them around his niece either, but if they wanted to keep ahold of them, shouldn’t they keep them with them? When they pulled out of the city, Sam glanced at the darkened mammoth buildings and wondered how many other people were here and how many of them were doing similar things that these kids had been doing just to survive.


	33. Alpha Changeling

Day 7 of being in New York was just the same as the other 6 that preceded it. Dean and Sam went out every night and came back every morning. They’d gotten close to finding the Alpha a couple of times . . . close enough that they’d been able to see her, but they still hadn’t killed her yet. Apparently she was a lot faster than anyone thought she’d be. 

While they were out, I stayed at the motel and babysat, which wasn’t so bad. The baby still didn’t have a name. She’d decided on Rogue, and Dean refused to call her that. It was a waiting game. Dean gave her a list of names every night and was waiting for her to smile at one of them the way she did when he said Rogue, and she was waiting for Dean to accept that she’d already decided what her name was going to be, and he was just going to have to live with it. I think she had him on the ropes, but he was really stubborn. I mean she was 5 months old and technically didn’t have a name.

I was searching through yet another book we got from the Kansas camp and finally found what I’d been looking for all month. It was a spell. For men who supposedly brought down the Grand Coven, those Men of Letters sure did use an awful lot of magic and spells themselves. Good vs. Bad magic, I guess. The spell was pretty straightforward. I just needed the right ingredients. 

Maybe after this Alpha Changeling was down, I could head into New York City and try to find what I needed in some occult shops that were probably still standing. Then I guess I’d be babysitting about 20 kids that Dean and Sam had found over the last week. They were going to Kansas. I didn’t want the New York kids going anywhere near the kids at the South Dakota camp. For some reason, I felt like the hunter-in-training kids should be protected more than other kids that I’d been told were in the Wisconsin or Kansas camps. 

These days, I made a lot of decisions based on how I felt about things instead of on what I thought about them. Somehow my emotions were the only thing I trusted. The parts of my brain that had feelings about memories I couldn’t remember were still there. It wasn’t the same as remembering them, but it was something.

After I wrote down the list of ingredients I needed for the spell, I glanced up and saw Rogue looking at me. She sure was a quiet baby . . . And her motor skills were getting better. As soon as she knew I’d seen that she was awake, she rolled over onto her stomach and struggled to push her upper body up, so she could change her position to looking at me head on instead of from the side. She was going to be crawling in no time. 

I put the books down and scooted over to the bed, so I could be closer to her head. It looked like it was time for our daily chat. I think that’s the only reason she woke up at this time these days. “Hey, Rogue.” She mimicked my smile as soon as I said it. Maybe that’s why she smiled when Dean called her Rogue. I thought it was hilarious, so I always smiled when I said it, and maybe she was copying my smile every time she heard it. Of course I wasn’t going to tell Dean that. I was sticking with it being the name she’d chosen. 

I put my hand out, so she could grab one of my fingers. Her grip was getting much stronger. She held on tight and put her head down on my hand, like it was a pillow for a few minutes, so she could rest after all her moving around to face me. 

While I waited for her to look at me again, I said, “So . . . you’re Dad is still out hunting that Alpha Changeling.” I always tried to keep her up to date on what Dean was doing. I thought it was good to tell her where he was even if I didn’t think she understood me. “I took out 3 alphas once. I don’t remember why, but I know I did. I had to cut their heads off with a silver knife.” She looked up at me when I said that, so I paused and exhaled a brief laugh. “Yeah, I know . . . it takes a long time to saw through them like that, and it’s pretty bloody, but your Dad won’t have to do anything like that . . . He just has to set the Alpha Changeling on fire . . . maybe douse her with something first to make sure the fire sticks, and he’ll have to make sure she doesn’t just run into the Hudson Bay to put it out . . . it’ll be harder to kill her than normal changelings, but he’ll get the job done. I feel like he’s a great hunter . . . maybe one of the best that’s ever lived . . . Don’t worry. You don’t have to do anything like that when you get older . . . unless you want to do it. He’s kind of doing it now, so you don’t have to do it . . . I think.” 

She put her head back down on my hand, and listened while I explained what a changeling was. Dean had come back this morning with more specifics on the kids he and Sam had saved, so I started telling her what they’d done to trick other kids into being eaten by the changeling mothers, and she looked up at me again. I smiled at the expression of shock she had. It was funny and fit the situation, or at least in my head it did. She was probably just struggling to keep pushing herself back up.

She smiled again in response to my smile, and I said, “I almost forgot. I finally found the spell that can help us go back in time . . . We’ll use it to go get some Phoenix ash soon.” I didn’t know why I knew there was a Phoenix in the past, but I did, and I’d been filling her in on it, so she knew why I was researching all the time. 

“I don’t think we’ll be gone for more than a couple of days. I promise I’ll bring your Dad back for you . . . I know you need him. I’d go without him, but I don’t think he’d like that too much . . . kind of the way I don’t think he’ll like it when I go to Heaven without him, but since that’s what I’m going to do, I have to give him something . . . I know it doesn’t seem very nice to be so dishonest with him, but he needs to stay here with you. The only problem is that he’s stubborn and still might try to follow me, so you’ll be left with your Uncle again while your Dad is looking for me. I’m not planning to do it until after Eve is gone, so you should have a little time before that happens. I just thought I’d tell you in case you wonder why he’s gone . . . If he somehow manages to follow me, I promise I’ll bring him back from Heaven too.” 

She really clenched her hand around my thumb and started rocking and kicking to move a bit closer to me. She was going to be crawling in the next week or two. I was sure of it. When she found a spot where she was happy, she laid her head back down on my hand again, so I said, “I’ll come back and stay with you guys after that. I can’t wait for you to meet your grandfather. I think you’ll really like him. I do.” 

I knew she had a book that Dean read to her, and I didn’t want to take away from that, so I didn’t read her that book. I read _Where the Wild Things Are_ to her instead. She didn’t give it the same kind of attention that she gave the other book, but she still listened and looked at the pictures. She wasn’t scared of the wild things. She mostly smiled and tried to touch a couple of her favorites when we got to those pages. 

When I finished with that, if she was still up, like she seemed to be tonight, I picked a song to sing to her. Tonight it was Mistaken for Strangers by the National. I thought the ‘no, you wouldn’t want an angel watchin’ over you. Surprise, surprise they wouldn’t wanna watch,’ particularly poignant, because angels were assholes, and we really didn’t want them watching over us. 

Dean had done a good job of training her to love Led Zeppelin from what he’d said, but I was looking forward to seeing what she thought of some of the albums Dean told me were mine. We picked them up when we went to go get his car in Kansas. I guess he used to play her some of my records that I’d left at the house in South Dakota. He said she liked some of them, but I’d have to see which ones she liked for myself. I didn’t even know what records I had there, so I was looking forward to that.

I wondered why he didn’t tell me about my records when we were in South Dakota. Maybe he hadn’t thought I could handle it, but after he saw me gravitate towards what were really my albums in Kansas, he thought I could. There were about 15, and they were all my favorite bands. He told me that he used to get them for me when he could find them after the outbreak. 

I really liked that he’d been willing to do something like that for me. The last person I remembered doing anything like that for me was when Cas gave me my angel blade for some reason that I couldn’t remember anymore, and before that it was when Gabriel gave me a little celebratory party for being accepted into my PhD program. I didn’t know if I was right, but I felt like maybe Dean had given me my watch. I got the same feeling when I looked at it that I did when I was talking to Dean, so that’s what made me think that and explained why it meant so much to me.

The song was done, and Rogue was nearly asleep. I was just thinking about trying to extract my hand from under her head when she jolted up and looked towards one of the windows. It was unusual behavior for her, so I quickly got to my feet and a few seconds later I heard someone or something outside the motel. No snow plows had pulled up outside. 

I slowly exhaled the breath I’d been holding when I heard something coming in through one of the windows in the room to the right of ours. _Fuck. Stay calm. It’s not in your room yet. You have time. Don’t rush into anything._ I quickly grabbed my bags and looked at Rogue. It was an easy decision to make. I hid her on the floor in the space between the wall and the bed before I grabbed my angel blade and waited just inside the door that connected the two rooms. 

_It’s not a demon. There are salt lines laid down. It shouldn’t be a shifter or a werewolf or angel because of the wards . . . Come on. You know what this is. It’s going on the offense now that its offspring are dropping like flies._

I turned to unzip my weapons bag, so I could grab some accelerant and an aerosol can when the door was smashed in and the hulking mother of a Changeling Alpha picked me up and threw me into the wall across the room. She was fucking huge, like the height of the room huge. _How the fuck did she fit through a window in the other room? Maybe there are others with her that came in through the window and opened the door for her?_

She was really fucking fast. She got to me before I was even fully standing and started to lay into me. She was kicking my ass. I was too far away from what I needed now that she’d thrown me away from it. My angel blade was hurting her some and annoying her a lot. Rogue was a good baby, but no baby was going to be quiet through something like that, so I had to up my game when she started crying. 

When the Alpha Changeling threw me back across the room, I smashed through the table my weapons bag had been on and quickly rolled onto my knees, so I could reach my hand into my bag and grab at least one of the flammable things I knew were in there. Unfortunately, I didn’t find them before she got to me again. 

I blocked her punches, which wasn’t as easy as it sounds with the way she was trying to pummel me, like a chimpanzee. She was really fucking strong, and I think she might’ve cracked something in one of my forearms. I couldn’t take another head blow like the other ones she’d already given me, so I put my fractured arm up to block her again, and used the opening that gave me to plunged my angel blade into her heart using my free hand. I knew it’d piss her off more, but it also hurt her enough that I got the time I needed to scramble and find my aerosol can. 

I didn’t get to use my homemade flamethrower on her once I had it. There was another changeling bitch that came into the room then and started heading for Rogue, so I turned on my knees and lit her up instead. I almost had enough time to duck when the Alpha struck out at my head again. She hit me, but it wasn’t a direct hit this time. It still knocked me to my hands and knees. _Don’t let her kick you in the ribs again. Rogue is depending on you. Shut it all down . . . now!_ That’s when time slowed down, and I knew what I had to do.

First and foremost, I needed to move a hell of a lot faster than I had been. The Alpha wasn’t expecting me to stab her in the heart again and be on my feet with a bottle of accelerant from my bag before she could do any more damage, but it didn’t stop her from picking me up and throwing me across the room again, which worked to my advantage. I used the time I was airborne to drop the accelerant when I was halfway across the room and pulled out one of my knives from the back of my belt instead of using my hands to break my fall. 

She was there by the time I got to my hands and knees, and it basically came down to which one of us was faster. I raised the knife above my head with both hands and plunged it down through her foot with as much strength as I could and quickly did the same with another knife I pulled out of my ankle strap, so I could pin her other foot to the ground. Now that she was pinned and couldn’t lift her feet, I’d bought myself half a second to reach down and pick up my angel blade from the ground beside me. She got the pointy end in her eye when I brought it up in time to stab her as she reached down to pull one of the knives out of her feet, and that bought me enough time to crawl around her and kick her knees out from behind, while she clutched her face. 

She fell forward as I grabbed the accelerant I’d dropped in favor of my knife the last time she threw me. I used what time I had to spray her with as much of it as I could, and when she was as soaked as she was going to get with the time I had, I tossed the bottle of accelerant at her knees, lit a matchbook, threw it at the puddle of accelerant pouring out of the bottle, and back pedaled away from her when she burst into flames. 

After that, I had one more mother changeling to deal with that came in at the sounds of the Alpha’s shrieks. That one was easy compared to the Alpha. I saw the aerosol can on the floor near the doorway where it’d rolled after I dropped it and did a somersault roll towards it as I dodged a punch she threw at me, grabbed the Zippo I had in my pocket and brought it and the aerosol can up before she got to me. She was a big ball of fire in seconds. That’s when Rogue’s cries directed my attention to the state of the room. 

She was about to be completely cut off from me by a wall of flames. I had just enough time to jump over the flames from the mother I’d just torched and onto the bed before the bed caught fire. Hopping off the bed and pulling it away from the wall as fast as I could was my next priority, and then I was finally able to grab Rogue and put her on the other bed that was fire-free. 

She was screaming. She’d probably hate me after this. I glanced around the room, and now we were blocked off from the exits. “It’s okay, Rogue . . . I’ll get us out of here.” I doused her and what she was in with lots of holy water and made sure she was covered from head to toe with one of my t-shirts that I’d soaked with holy water too. The smoke was starting to get to me as I poured what was left of the holy water over my head, pulled out my handgun, made a run towards where the flames were at their weakest, and shot the lock off the door to the room to the left of ours, so I could kick it open. 

As soon as I got into that room, I had to put Rogue down and shake my coat off, because the sleeve was on fire. Didn’t have time for stop, drop and roll. As soon as it was off of me, that room started to go up too, or maybe it’d already started to go up. I didn’t know. The fire was starting to consume everything. _Keep going. Don’t stop moving._ I ran to the door of the next room with my bags and shot the lock on that one too, got through the door, shot out one of the windows, climbed out and started making my way to the Impala, coughing as I went.

I didn’t quite make it to the car before something decided to use my own move against me and knocked my knees out from behind me, causing me to drop my bags in the snow. _Don’t stop moving._ I quickly turned at the waist to stab into the stomach of yet another damn changeling mother before I used the time that bought me to try and get back on my feet. I may have gotten to my feet, but I wasn’t steady enough on them to take the kick she delivered to my chest and was knocked back down. _Stop wasting time trying to get up._

I started crab walking away from her to make her think I was weak and helpless, because monsters like that kind of thing. I had to get her away from my bags and back to the motel. That’s where I’d left my flamethrower and accelerant, so I didn’t have any other way of killing changeling if it wasn’t death by motel fire. 

When we got close enough to the motel, she leaned down to pick me up, so I brought my angel blade up to slice across her face, swung it back across her chest, and stabbed her in the stomach again before I scrambled around behind her, so I could tackle her into the motel, but she was stronger than me. She might’ve fallen on her face, but she kept out of the motel, and now she knew what I was planning, so she quickly got to her hands and knees and kicked me away from her to buy herself time to get back on her feet. 

One good turn deserves another, so when she turned to face me after getting to her feet, I didn’t wait for her to get steady on them before I got up into a low crouch and tackled her back through the wall that was weakened by the flames. She used her legs to flip me over her head and further into the room, and I briefly thought she was like an asshole, changeling, version of me, with the way she’d been using my own moves against me before I landed on my back and sat up to put the fire out on my jeans. I don’t think I got burnt, but the jeans were ruined.

There were no more rooms that weren’t on fire at that point. The only way out was the way we’d come in, so I rolled over and started to crawl in that direction, but the changeling was trying to do the same thing, and she was ahead of me. I grabbed ahold of her ankle and pulled her back towards me to keep her in there and away from Rogue. We exchanged a few punches until I was able to kick her into some flames by one of the beds, and then she stood and started flailing around, trying to get out of the fire. All she managed to do was set herself more on fire the more that she moved. _Lesson learned. Stay down._

I tried to belly crawl towards the hole we’d made in the wall, but I’d been in there too long and was struggling to breathe, so I collapsed before I could get there. _No, don’t give up. You don’t know how many more of those things there are. You need to go out there and protect your daughter._

I started to crawl towards the hole again. It’d be like trying to get out through a ring of fire, and I wasn’t in the damn circus. _You got in through that wall. Get out doing the same thing. Make it fast . . . easier said than done. When I did it the first time, I could breathe . . . Stop thinking about it, and just get the fuck out of here . . . Okay, but I’m gonna need some space, so I can get enough momentum going. I’ll end up like that changeling if I’m not fast enough._

I crawled backwards a few more feet and got lost in a coughing fit. I couldn’t stop. And then the next thing I knew Dean was beside me, and a wet towl came down over the top of me before he picked me up and carried me outside. As soon as we were clear, I pulled the towel off my head and saw Sam at my bags holding Rogue. She was crying, but she wasn’t screaming. I hoped she was okay after I dropped her, but she did land in a pile of snow, so it should’ve cushioned the fall. 

When Dean put me down on the ground, I felt the cold of the snow start to seep through my clothes and it felt pretty nice, but I couldn’t stop coughing. _I thought what happened to me happened to you. Why aren’t you coughing?_

“You’re blocking me.” 

_Good._

He glanced at me when I thought that, but decided not to respond to it before he went back to checking me over for injuries. _Why are you –_

“I can’t find where you’re bleeding.” 

_I’m bleeding everywhere, aren’t I?_

He smiled and said, “Yeah, you are, but I don’t mean from a scrape . . . it’s all over your clothes, and you’ve got burns, and –“ He was starting to feel guilty, so I cut him off.

_‘Check the right side of my lower back . . . I went through a table. Maybe I picked up a splinter. It hasn’t felt right since . . . if it’s not there, check the back of my left shoulder . . . I might’ve landed on something when I tackled that last shifter into the motel.’_

He rolled me onto my side and had a look under my shirt before he took a deep breath and said, “I’m gonna have to pull this out.” 

_What is it?_

“Uhh . . . splinter . . . you ready?” I nodded, and he proceeded to pull a plank of of wood that was about 4-inches long out of my lower back before showing it to me. 

_There are so many things that could’ve hit._

Dean laughed without any humor and said, “Yeah, I know. I don’t think it was too far from your kidney. Got any ideas on what I should do?” 

_Is there any saline in your bag? You should probably wash it out._

“You got yours on you?” 

_No, I think it’s burning as we speak._

“Hydrogen peroxide work?” 

_You have a bottle of it? You’re going to need a lot._

“Yeah . . . why don’t you let me take the pain for you . . . I’m here now.” 

_So both of us can be out of action? No, thanks . . . it won’t hurt that bad . . . at least it’s not rubbing alcohol . . . do you have anything that you can use to flush it out with?_

“Will this work?” he asked holding what looked like one of those suction balls you use on babies with stuffed up noses. It was still in the packaging, so it should be fine. 

_Yeah, go on._

He told me when he was ready and then flushed it out a couple of times. It stung, but I felt better about having him do that than leaving any debris from the table in there. When he was finished, he put gauze up to it to try and stop the bleeding while he lifted my shirt a little higher and had a look at my shoulder. “Think your shoulder’s fine . . . it’s just bad a bruise.” 

_The snow makes it feel better. Can I roll back over now?_

He wrapped up my lower back before helping me roll over, and I was happy to stay there, but I had the feeling he’d be ready to go soon. 

_Can I stay here for a few more minutes?_ He looked really compassionate and took a deep breath to calm down before he gave me a nod. _If I’m blocking you, how do you know what I’m thinking?_

“I think when you block me from knowing where you are, it blocks me from getting hurt when you do, but knowing what you’re thinking is separate.” 

_How’d you find me?_

“I saw you go in when we pulled up . . . I wasn’t fast enough to stop it . . . wasn’t fast enough to stop any of it. I tried to get here, but -” 

_All those moments will be lost in time . . . like tears in rain._

He smiled at me briefly and said, “Blade Runner? You tryin’ to tell me that it all worked out in the end, so I shouldn’t be upset you almost died?” 

I coughed while I nodded. _Yeah, I could handle the rest, but you were here when I needed help. Thanks._


	34. You're My Home

Dean carried a battered Beth to the front seat of the Impala after he got her bleeding to stop. He hadn’t seen her this banged up since Crowley took her to St. Louis. He was worried about her lungs and that wound on her back. He needed medical supplies. They weren’t too far from the city, so maybe they could go grab her some oxygen and a few other things from one of the hospitals before they went to get those kids they’d stashed in a house in New Jersey. This is why he’d stashed them there. Beth’d had her hands full just getting Rogue out alive. 

He went over to Sam to get his daughter, and his shoulders dropped when he caught sight of his brother’s face. Choosing to ignore it, Dean took his daughter, and almost immediately, she laid her head on his chest, sniffled, and stopped crying all together. She was soaking wet. He’d have to change her clothes after he got her back to the car and out of the cold weather. Wrapping his coat around her, Dean glanced at Sam. “You good to drive the snow plow?” 

Sam nodded, so Dean turned to go back to the car, but stopped when Sam said, “So, this okay for you? She stuffed the baby in a duffle bag, dumped water all over her when it’s below zero out here, and then left her out here in the snow. What would’ve happened if we hadn’t gotten here when we did? She would’ve frozen to death.” 

Dean wasn’t in the mood for it, so he didn’t even try to temper his anger as he turned and said, “She just had to fight off 3 full-grown changelings and the alpha . . . She got our daughter away from them and out of that fire alive . . . you’re damn right I’m okay with it.” _I left Beth here for a reason. She did exactly what I wanted her to do._

Sam shook his head. “She’s not cut out to be a mother, Dean. The sooner you get that, the better off your daughter will be.” 

“So, I’m just supposed to abandon Beth because you don’t think she’s a good enough Mom?” _Rogue lights up everytime she sees Beth, and now she thinks them pretending not to know each other during the day is a game, because she’s just like her Mom._

Dean didn’t know how anybody that was around the two of them all the time couldn’t see it. Rogue was always watching Beth when Beth wasn’t looking, and if Beth turned around, Rogue would look away and pretend like she wasn’t. If Beth caught Rogue looking at her, Beth would smile and keep doing whatever it was she was doing, but she’d give Rogue a look, like she’d won that time, and Rogue would laugh, like she’d been caught and then look away. And it wasn’t just Dean’s imagination. 

He’d asked Beth a couple weeks ago what the tally was, and she pretended like she didn’t know what he was talking about, but he wouldn’t drop it, and then she told him it was something like 75-40 in Rogue’s favor. He’d asked her how she knew that, and she’d pulled an empty compact they used to test for changelings out of her pocket. She used it every so often to see if Rogue was looking at her, and if Rogue looked away before she could turn around and catch her doing it, she’d give Rogue a point. If she caught Rogue, she got the point. _I don’t even have any games like that with her._ He had upset his daughter with his temper though, so he decided to drop it and turned to cut Sam off mid-sentence saying, “You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, Sam . . . Let’s go. We need to get Beth some oxygen and then we’ll go get those kids out of Jersey.” 

A semi-conscious Beth let Dean wrap up the burns on her right wrist after he got done with the hospital run, and that was fine, but when he wanted her to put on the oxygen mask, she put up a bit of a fight. He didn’t give up, so she eventually put it on, but then she fought him when he tried to put the splint on her left forearm. Maybe it wasn’t completely broken, but it was really swollen, so he’d say it was fractured. 

She couldn’t talk, but she let him know what she thought about it. She still swore like a trucker, but he eventually got her to agree to wear the splint. It wasn’t more than maybe 5 minutes later that she fell asleep. It was the first time in a long time he’d seen her sleep. He didn’t know how much she was getting, but it wasn’t enough, and that wasn’t like her. He didn’t know how she was blocking him from being hurt when she was without her knowing that she was doing it either. She used to say that it took a lot of concentration for her to be able to do it. He could’ve unblocked her, but if he had, then he wouldn’t have been able to save her, so this time, it was a win. 

He glanced in the back at his daughter. She was asleep too. It’d been a big night for her. She was 5 months old, and she’d had her first brush with monsters. It was to be expected with the way the world was now, but he’d wanted to keep it from her longer than this. It’s why this motel was in Upstate New York, not anywhere near the city, and it’s why he’d gone different ways into the city every night and left by heading into New Jersey with the kids they found. He’d known the mother changelings working with the Alpha would pick up the trail eventually, but he’d thought that he’d been careful enough to avoid it for at least another week, and he’d been planning on ending it long before that. 

It moved a lot faster than any other monster he’d ever encountered. It’s why he wasn’t so keen on going after the Alpha Vamp anymore . . . at least not until Sam could get around a little better. Sam was barely keeping up. If Sam had been the one left at the motel, his daughter and Sam would both be dead, which is why he’d left Beth there in case something like this happened. 

He could leave his daughter and Sam at Bobby’s, but Sam would hate that. It might make Sam start to go dark side again, and Dean couldn’t let that happen. He had to keep Sam with him . . . until he and Beth went to go get that Pheonix ash. Sam would have to stay here with the baby while they did that. If there was even a chance he and Beth didn’t make it back, then his daughter had to have somebody, and Cas was not on the trustworthy side of things at the moment. And Cas . . . Cas knew where this Purgatory thing would lead, but he was still heading down the wrong path even after he’d been warned about it. It seemed to be another one of those fate things they couldn’t stop. Didn’t mean Dean wasn’t gonna try to stop it, but with the way things like this worked, Cas was gonna be getting those Purgatory souls in the next few months.

When they stopped at the house to pick up the kids, it was early morning. Dean made sure the ones in the back of Sam’s truck had blankets and water and told Sam to stop in an hour, so they could switch the ones in the cab out with some of the ones in the back. They’d do that 3 or 4 times, and then they were gonna have to find somewhere to stop for lunch, so the kids could get warm. When they got out of Pennsylvania, they could head a little further south where the snow wasn’t as deep. It should make driving back to Kansas faster. He just had to make sure they didn’t go so far south that they were out of the snow completely, because he didn’t want to deal with all the Croats.

The next time Dean looked in the back seat, his daughter was watching him. She glanced in Beth’s direction and reached for her before she looked back at him. He’d read somewhere in one of those books that babies were supposed to be good at communicating without saying anything. Parents just needed to pay attention to understand it. If she wanted to see Beth, than he’d let her see her. 

He indicated for Sam to keep going while he pulled over and got out to go pick up his daughter and bring her to the front seat, so she could see Beth. She looked concerned while she grabbed at Beth’s shirt. When he took her hand away after Beth started to wake up, his daughter looked up at him defiantly before she reached for Beth again. He knew that look. She got it from Beth. He could see where this was going. If he tried to take her away from Beth now, she’d start crying. Beth was waking up no matter what now, so Dean propped their daughter up between them to see what happened. 

The first thing Beth did after their daughter started pounding on her leg was take the oxygen mask off and look over at him. She looked confused, so Dean said, “She wanted to see you.” As if on cue, their daughter put her hand on Beth’s arm to let her know she was there. Beth leaned against the door, so she could use it to turn and face their daughter before she lifted her hand and their daughter grabbed ahold of her thumb. Their daughter stopped squirming and seemed pretty happy, so Dean said, “This is what you do instead of holding her?” 

Beth nodded, so Dean asked, “Then what?” 

_”I talk to her . . . about what you’re doing . . . tonight I told her I chopped the heads off of 3 alphas one time . . . thought you would finally get your first one . . . told her what changelings were and how to kill them . . . Still think I’m mother material?”_

“Yeah, I do. What else?” 

Beth kept her focus on their daughter, but thought to him, _‘I told her I had the spell to send us back for the Pheonix ash.’_

Dean went from watching his daughter shaking Beth’s hand to watching Beth and said, “It burnt up?” She gave him a wishywashy hand gesture and pointed to her head with her free hand. Right. The woman who memorized everything she found in Heaven memorized what they needed for the spell. She was still that woman . . . she’d just been reset to her factory settings . . . She wanted to ask him if she could go pick up the stuff for the spell. He asked her what she needed, so she let him know. He knew a place they could go that should still have all that if they took a detour through Toledo, so he said that and then asked, “Then what?” to keep her from being sidetracked. 

_”Tonight?”_

“Tonight or any night works.” 

_”Tonight I read to her . . . then I sang a song from The National . . . she was almost asleep, but she heard the changelings before I did by a couple of seconds . . . I needed those couple of seconds.”_ Those couple of seconds that a hunter has where they go from being unprepared to being ready for anything could be the difference between life and death sometimes, so he was giving his daughter credit for helping save her and Beth tonight. Beth smiled when he said that.

“What book did you read?” 

_”Where the Wild Things Are . . . you have your book . . . that’s why it’s her favorite . . . I don’t want to infringe on that, so I read Where the Wild Things Are.”_ He hadn’t thought of that being why their daughter always chose that book, but if Beth was right, it gave him an idea. 

“You grab it?” Beth nodded, so he asked if he could read it. Beth adjusted her position to look for something and took a sharp breath after she moved. She was in pain, but she was trying to control it. She knew she could stop blocking him now, and he’d take it for her. He thought it had to mean something if she was still blocking it from him. It was another one of those things that showed him how she felt about him even if she didn’t know it. 

_”I grabbed both books . . . might’ve doused them with water. They were under her.”_ Dean reached into the back seat and grabbed Beth’s clothing bag. He didn’t know what Sam was talking about. It’s not like Beth put their daughter in her weapons bag. The books weren’t too bad. Not much water had gotten to them. 

“You’re sure?” he asked before he started. 

Beth leaned her head against the glass while she nodded. _“Yeah . . . make sure she can see the wild things . . . she has a couple of favorites that she likes to see.”_

When he started to read that book, his daughter looked confused. She looked at him and then at Beth . . . and then she tried to stop him from reading it. She did know the difference between the books, and they did mean something different to her because of who read them to her. She wanted Beth to read this book, and that’s because their daughter wanted her too. 

Even after what happened tonight, that wouldn’t change, and that’s what he’d wanted Beth to see, so he was glad his daughter was a genius and helped him out with that. Eventually, when his daughter realized she wasn’t going to get her way, she settled down and laid her head on Beth while he read. It occurred briefly to Dean that this was kind of the first time they’d done the family thing together. It was kind of what he’d thought it would be like . . . maybe not with Beth covered in soot and blood and on oxygen, but it was close. When he was done, he glanced at Beth, and she looked at his book. She wanted him to read it too. She thought it was funny, and she liked hearing him read it. When he was done, he looked and both of them were asleep. Yeah, this was definitely close.

When they got to where they were staying that night, Beth was out cold, so he took his daughter into the motel and handed her to Sam before he went to go grab Beth and carried her in to his bed. After he made sure his daughter was ready for bed and had plenty of pillows to keep her from rolling out, he made sure Sam was all right in his room too . . . Sam was going to take the first watch. After a shitty night, today hadn’t been too bad. 

Dean wanted to try something, so when he got done talking to Sam, he came back, got ready for bed and climbed in next to Beth. He wondered how this would go down, because she hadn’t slept next to him once since she’d been back or even really thought it was something she should do. She always took the couch. Trying to keep his distance to be on the safe side, he fell asleep before he knew it and woke up a few hours later to Sam coming in to wake him. Sam looked annoyed, like he thought Dean was an idiot, but Dean didn’t care. He pointed to the door to let Sam know he was on it before Sam could say anything to wake up Beth or the baby. 

As soon as Sam was gone, Beth rolled over towards Dean and said quietly, “I want to go skiing.” She always had a softer voice when she talked to him in her sleep. It was quieter tonight because of the smoke from the fire, but he could still hear her if he leaned a little closer. 

Dean held his breath to contain what he was feeling. “Yeah? What kind of skiing?” 

Beth was quiet for a few seconds and whispered, “Chocolate milk skiing.” 

He licked his lips and bit his bottom lip while he tried not to laugh and asked, “Where do we go to do that?” 

“The chocolate milk lake.” 

“When do you wanna go?” 

Beth quickly said, “You’ll take me?” like she was excited, and Dean nodded. 

“If there’s a lake of chocolate milk out there, there’s no way I’m missing that . . . I’ll take you . . . just need to know when?” 

Beth whispered, “Whenever you want . . . tomorrow or next week . . . it’s up to you.” 

Dean grinned and said, “I don’t know. That’s kind of short notice . . . how about two months . . . can you wait two months?” 

Beth exhaled softly, like she was disappointed and said, “Yeah, as long as you take me, I can wait.” 

Dean wondered about this all the other times she’d asked him to do things like this with her, and he wasn’t sure when he’d have a chance like this again. “Why do you want me to take you?” 

“Because you’re the most fun.” 

He watched her closely and asked, “You know who I am?” 

Beth’s brow furrowed before she said, “You’re my home, Dean . . . Chocolate milk skiing sounds fun. We can go in 2 months?” 

Being with him was what home felt like to her? That meant a million times more to him than if she ever said she loved him. Dean rested his forehead against Beth’s and answered, “Yeah, you remind me, and I’ll take you in 2 months.” 

Beth snuggled a little closer to him and whispered, “Okay. I will. Can’t wait,” before she was completely out again.


	35. Two Steps Forward One Step Back

It'd been 5 weeks, since the Alpha Changeling incident, and they still hadn’t gotten to the camp in Kansas yet, because they made a stop in Toledo that took them almost a week and a half out of their way. Dean was still babying Beth and made them stop to get her inhalers from a few hospitals along the way too. Sam wasn’t sure that she needed them, but Dean seemed to think she did, and whatever Dean wanted, Dean got. 

They should hit Kansas in a few days. Sam hadn’t thought he’d be driving this long. He’d thought Beth or Dean would trade off with him, but Dean didn’t want Beth driving. He wanted her to take it easy, and again what Dean wanted, Dean got. Dean was dealing with a lot between trying to take care of Beth and their child and preparing to get rid of Eve and getting these kids somewhere safe, but Dean was handling it all on his own. Dean had always been like that, but he seemed worse about it these days, or maybe it was because things were worse these days that the way Dean worked was taking too much out of him, not that Dean ever complained about it. 

Sam could see it, because he knew Dean so well, and he didn’t know how to help. He’d tried everything he could, and Dean wasn’t willing to share the load. It was like talking to a brick wall. Sam also had no idea why Dean planned on taking Beth to go find the Phoenix ash and not him. If she was bad enough that she still needed inhalers, and Dean wasn’t letting her out of his sight, then how did Dean expect her to help him in the Wild West? 

That night they stopped just East of the Mississippi. All they had to do was get through Missouri, and they’d be at the Kansas camp. Dean was sleeping in the same bed as Beth again. Sam thought Dean was getting his hopes up when he shouldn’t and was sure Beth was going to do something to hurt him, but Dean wouldn’t listen to him about that either. 

He struggled to fall asleep while he tried to think of a way he could convince Dean to take him with him to get the Pheonix ash or when it was time to use it on Eve, because he knew that’s what would come next. Every time he checked his watch, it was another 20 minutes closer to when he was supposed to get up and do guard duty. Dean took the first watch, Beth took the second, and then it was Sam’s turn. It was the middle of Beth’s shift, so Sam got up to tell her she could just go back to bed. If he couldn’t sleep, somebody else might as well have the chance to do it. 

Sam stopped when he got to the door of Dean and Beth’s room, because he could hear Beth talking. He wondered if Dean was still up. _If we’re all up, maybe we can hit the road earlier than we planned._ The kids all went to bed around 9. It was almost 3, so if they left now, the kids would’ve gotten about 6 hours of sleep. The sooner they left, the further they’d get, and the faster those kids would be in their new homes. 

Sam stuck his head in the room and realized Dean was asleep. Dean was a light sleeper, so he must trust Beth if he could sleep through her talking no matter how quiet she was. Beth smiled when her daughter rolled away from her, touched the wall, and then rolled back towards Beth. As soon as she grabbed Beth’s hand, she started giggling, so Beth looked over her shoulder at Dean and tried to get her to quiet down. _Rogue? When the hell did they come up with that? That’s a terrible name._ It looked like he needed to have a word with Dean about that. There might still be time to change it if it was something new. 

The baby rolled over onto her stomach and pulled on Beth’s hand, so she could get up on her hands and knees, and Sam ducked back inside the door when Beth turned to come to the end of the bed. The next time Sam looked, Beth was kneeling on the floor with her back to him and was coaxing her daughter to crawl towards her. 

Sam almost put a stop to it, because he thought the baby was too close to the edge of the bed, but he hadn’t seen her crawl yet. The baby put one hand forward, then a knee, then her other hand and other knee and followed Beth’s directions on staying away from the side of the bed as she crawled all the way to Beth. When she got to the foot of the bed, Beth put her hands in the air, like the baby scored a touchdown, and the baby laughed at her before she looked confused when Beth crawled back around to where she’d been at the side of the bed. 

When the baby looked over her shoulder at Beth, she smiled and did what Beth said as Beth encouraged her to turn around and crawl back to her. Sam thought he was going to have to step in at that point, because he thought she was dangerously close to the foot of the bed now, but she turned towards the wall and back to face Beth before she crawled all the way back faster than she had the first time. 

When Beth silently celebrated the victory this time, the baby laughed and collapsed on the bed before she kicked and squirmed into a position facing Beth and grabbed for Beth’s hand, so she could put her head on it while Beth told her about killing demons in Hell’s DMV. She painted a pretty blood story, and it seemed to go on for at least 5 minutes before she started to wrap things up.

“The last time was the best though . . . I got my friend Cerebus to help. He’s the one I told you about that I set free at the 4th gate . . . I found him again, and I still remembered what my Dad taught me to say to free him from the chains, but I knew he should want to eat me this time, because I was alive and in Hell, and that’s against the rules. I hated seeing him chained to the wall though . . . He deserves more respect than that. I talked him for a few days outside the reach of his chains, and eventually we decided that I’d let him go, and we’d go to Crowley’s waiting room, so he could power up by devouring as many souls as he could, and then he was going to show me how to get to the punishing angels . . . I told him what they were planning, and he seemed to know what I meant, and he didn’t want those things released from the abyss even more than he didn’t want the demons getting out of the Gates of Hell . . . When we got to Crowley’s waiting room, Cerebus started tearing into the souls of the bad people that were waiting there, while I killed the new demons behind the glass . . . We were weakening Crowley with each soul we took from him. The white walls were red by the time we finished, and we were out the door before Crowley knew what hit him . . . we got to some new places in Hell I hadn’t been before Cas found me and brought me back to Crowley’s library. I don’t know what Cas did to Cerebus, but I told him to let him go, so he could tell the good punishing angels that didn’t work for Raphael what was happening, and then before I knew it I was topside again, and that’s how you and I met.” 

Sam’s anger grew throughout her story, so he couldn’t help himself from saying, “Do you really think that’s the kind of thing she should be hearing?” 

Beth jumped, and released her daughter’s hold on her before she scooted back towards Dean’s bed. “I, uh . . . well, see I think –“ 

Sam went to go pick up his niece that was starting to cry and said, “Some job keeping the night watch . . . I shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on you like that. Is that what happened with the Changelings? You shouldn’t be on –“ 

Sam was cut off by Dean who wasn’t as asleep as he’d been pretending to be. “Put her down, Sam. She wants Beth. She’s her daughter, not yours.” 

Sam looked at Dean who was starting to sit up and said, “Really? She’s her daughter?” before he looked at Beth and held her sobbing daughter towards her. “Take her . . . if she’s your daughter, then take her and hold her and be a Mom and stop teaching her to crawl across the bed when it’s dangerous and stop telling her bloody hunting stories about what it was like when you killed demons in Hell, and Rogue? That’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard!” 

Beth looked down and wouldn’t take her baby, so Sam said, “That’s what I thought. You’re not her mother. You’re someone that carried her for 9 months and doesn’t even remember it. She deserves better than that,” before he sat on the bed with his niece that was still crying and reaching for one or both of her parents.

Dean was the one that took his daughter from Sam and tried to get Beth to stay in the room as she went out saying something about going to do her rounds. “Dean, I told you Beth’s not –“ 

“Shut up, Sam! This isn’t about Beth. This is about you. Maybe it’s that not a Michael’s vessel thing kicking in . . . I don’t know, but stay the fuck away from her until you figure it out.” Dean started putting his daughter’s coat and shoes on and told her they’d go find her Mom before he started ranting at Sam. “And Rogue’s the one that picked her name . . . I’ve been fighting it for the last 3 months, but I think you just made my decision for me. She can go by whatever name she wants . . . and Beth has had her crawling for the last 3 weeks. They’ve had a game they play all day long for the last 2 months, and Beth has a book she reads to her every night the same as me . . . she even sings to her. What have you done other than bitch and moan about everything you think we’re doing wrong.” Then Dean pulled on a pair of jeans before he picked up his crying daughter and gave Sam one last glare as he slammed the motel door behind him. 

The other kids were up. Sam went to tell them to go ahead and start getting ready before he decided to see if he could help find Beth. This was the type of thing that would make her do a runner. Maybe part of the reason he’d done it was to make that happen, but now he thought it was the wrong thing to do. He knew Beth found out something about why some people attack her. Missouri told him she did, but Missouri didn’t know what it was, because Beth hadn’t told her and had blocked it before Missouri could find out, and he hadn’t had a chance to ask Beth before she’d had her memories wiped. Maybe Missouri knew what direction he should look to find the answers. He hadn’t thought that was what the problem was, but he suspected it was now that Dean had mentioned it. 

Going outside, he followed Beth’s tracks in the snow and stopped about 100 feet away when he saw Dean had already caught up to her. Beth was looking down, and Dean said something before Beth glanced up at him. Her shoulders slumped when she looked at her daughter that was crying and reaching for her. Beth lifted her hand, and her daughter grabbed onto her thumb, pulled Beth’s hand closer to her, and hugged her hand to her chest before calming down. Dean smiled briefly and said something else to Beth. Sam didn’t want to intrude, so he turned to go back in the motel and make sure the kids were actually getting ready to go instead of just going back to sleep. 

He needed to figure this out. Beth and her daughter already had a way of being close that he hadn’t seen, and it didn’t involve Beth ever holding her. Beth was weird. She’d always been weird, and maybe this hand holding thing was her way of expressing what she felt for her daughter without her really understanding it, and her daughter knew that and was happy to take what she could get. 

He thought about it the whole way to Kansas, which meant his foot had its own control over what it wanted to do, and they made it there by mid-afternoon the next day. When they got to the gates, Dean went to go meet Tom and brought the kids into the camp. Dean was gone for a while, and when he came back, he told Sam to change places. Beth was gonna drive the plow back to South Dakota with the baby, so Sam was riding with him. 

Sam figured that in Dean’s mind, letting Sam ride shotgun with him in the Impala was his way of saying that Sam was his brother and nothing would change that. They were quiet almost the whole way. That was fine. Sam didn’t need to talk. Just being with his brother was enough for him. 

Dean glanced at Sam when they were maybe 5 minutes away and said, “Sam . . . we’ll figure it out. With everything else we’ve got goin’ on, I forgot about that thing I said until last night . . . if it looks like it’s headin’ that way, I’ll let . . . I’ll let Beth take off for awhile until we get it sorted . . . I’m not leavin’ you behind again.” 

Sam turned to face Dean and said, “What about your daughter?” 

Dean’s jaw clenched while he focused on the road. “I’ll let her go too . . . I don’t know if it’s just a Beth thing or a everybody connected to Beth thing, but I won’t chance it if it means something could happen to our daughter too.” 

_That’s crazy!_ “That’s not what I want, Dean. I think I know what I have to do . . . “ Sam paused, because it looked like Dean was going to interrupt him to say Sam didn’t have to leave. “I’m not leavin’ either. Not for good . . . I think . . . I think I need to go talk to Bobby. If it happened to him too, maybe he has some ideas.” 

Dean glanced at him before he put his focus back on the road and said, “Yeah, all right . . . but I’m coming with you.” Sam was going to say he needed to do it on his own, but Dean already knew he was going to say that and added, “Not up for discussion, Sam,” so Sam decided to let it go for now.

Missouri was already waiting for him with her hands on her hips when they pulled up, and her disgusted look was clearly aimed at Sam. Dean chuckled, while he got out of the car and headed for the house, which left Sam to be confronted by Missouri alone. She did give him a hard time and said Beth was doing the best that she could, but that wasn’t the main reason she wanted to talk to him. She was coming with him and Dean too. There was someone bothering her, who wanted to join in on the discussion, but more than that, she wanted to go and get a read on the camp to see if it was safe for Sam and Dean to go there now. 

It looked like she wanted to go this second, so Sam took his bags from the Impala and tossed them in the cab of the snow plow before he climbed in and waited for Dean to come back. It looked like Dean wanted to drive the Impala. Well, if that was the case, Dean could take Missouri . . . or not. It looked like Missouri was riding with him, so Dean got to fly solo. 

_This whole snow plow leading the Impala around everywhere sucks._ “Just for that Sam Winchester, I’m ridin’ with you the whole way,” Missouri said climbing in and giving him a look. _That’s just fantastic._ “You think I can’t hear sarcasm either? You used to be such a nice boy,” Missouri tutted. After that, Sam decided not to think about anything. Just watch the road and drive.

Sam stood outside the front gates with Dean. This felt familiar. “Thought you weren’t comin’ back after the last time,” Bobby called down. 

Missouri called up saying, “Don’t you give them a hard time, Bobby. They’re here to figure you what happened to you, so they can stop it from happening again . . . Let ‘em in, and we’ll work on figuring it out together.” 

“They blew up the camp!” 

Dean grinned and said, “I told you if anything happened to Adam, Cas, or my baby, I’d burn this place down . . . just kept my word.” 

Missouri gave Dean a small shove. “You think that’s helping?” 

Dean sighed and looked up at Bobby before he said, “Let us in . . . or Missouri will huff and she’ll puff and she’ll blow the gates in.” 

Bobby quickly looked at the people on the wall next to him that were now intending to shoot Dean and shouted, “What the hell’s wrong with ya? Can’t ya see he was jokin’ . . . ah, balls . . . let ‘em in. Keep your damn guns off of ‘em . . . nobody is allowed in the main cabin while we’re talkin’ . . . you hear me?” He waited until the people nodded and then came down to open the gates himself when nobody else did it. 

“Might wanna make it quick . . . some of ‘em are still a little sore about the explosives routine.” 

Sam shook his head and said, “You know that was Beth, right? She’s not here.” 

Bobby nodded and said with a sigh, “Yeah, I figured that when it was happenin’ . . . no way Dean coulda set that up if he was out front with you . . . She was tryin’ to teach us one of her lessons . . . lot of the people in this camp didn’t learn it.” 

Dean smirked and said, “That’s cuz she didn’t leave ‘em a note to explain it.” 

Bobby snorted. “She did . . . slipped it under the door of the clinic.” Dean looked like he didn’t know that. Beth probably forgot to tell him because of them moving camp and the Croats and making sure Cas and Adam were okay and then running the other camp and the tablets. Nothing major . . . an innocuous thing she forgot to tell Dean, but Sam saw that it knocked Dean back a bit before Dean could hide it. 

Sam hadn’t thought of it when he planned this, but Dean and Beth had built this place. They must’ve made a lot of memories here, memories she didn’t have anymore . . . She’d never be able to remember leaving that note, so Dean couldn’t ask about it when he saw her again. “Why do you think I rode with you? He needed time to himself. This is a hell of a lot harder for him than you think. They had a life here for a year, but they had a life here before it that meant even more to him in some ways, and it’s not just that . . . Adam was a big part his life here too,” Missouri said to him quietly when Dean and Bobby were far enough ahead they couldn’t hear. 

Sam hadn’t even thought about how much of Adam was wrapped up in this place. That made it worse. Sam remembered how hard going back to their childhood home in Lawrence had been on Dean, and he remembered how Dean wouldn’t even look at their mother’s gravestone when Sam wanted to go, and just like both of those times, Dean went along with it for Sam.

Bobby was shocked to find out Dean had a daughter. He liked her name and chuckled every time he said it until he found out about Adam and got up to get some whiskey to share with them. Sam declined, and Dean couldn’t start drinking fast enough. After a couple of sips, Bobby asked about Beth, and Sam was the one that told him what was going on with her. 

“She don’t remember anyone?” 

Dean shook his head and said, “Nope . . . not you either . . . She remembers the hunts . . . knows her first hunt was a vamp nest . . . doesn’t know who she was on the hunt with or who trained her before that,” before he downed his drink and filled his glass again. Sam was wishing he hadn’t brought Dean back here now. 

“I’m sorry Dean . . . for that and for what happened the last time she was here . . . can’t make it right with some words, but I am,” Bobby said finishing his own drink and followed Dean’s lead on the next. 

They needed to get this figured out before everyone was too drunk to think, so Sam jumped in saying, “That’s actually why we’re here. We were thinking there might be something to it . . . some reason why people that aren’t Dean or Adam . . . turn on her or –“ 

Dean paused in his drinking long enough to say, “Not just people turning against her the way they did here . . . other people tryin’ to take advantage of her, like they think they don’t have to take ‘no’ as an answer from her.” 

Missouri spoke up and said, “I think the fourth party that wants to join has had enough waiting. I’m getting all kinds of threats now.” Sam looked at Dean. Dean seemed to already know who it was even though Sam didn’t. They knew a lot of dead people. Dean filled his glass again and drank a good bit of it before Missouri did her séance. As soon as the person came through, the first thing Missouri did was shake her head and smirk at Sam. “Nice move, Stanford. Were you trying to make Beth run away from home?” 

Sam smiled and said, “Hey, Adam . . . should’ve known as soon as Missouri said the person was annoying that it was you. How’d you know what happened? I thought Dean and Beth were hidden from you guys up there.” 

“What can I say? Once you’re in with them, you’re in for life . . . and death, I guess.” 

Dean was staring at his drink and looked like he didn’t think he should say anything to Adam, but he smiled briefly at that, before a thought occurred to him. "Don't let that get around up there. There are two archangels that might come looking for you." Adam nodded to let Dean know he'd keep it quiet, and then a flash of concern flashed over Dean's face, probably because Dean wasn't there to have Adam's back. Maybe there was a healthy dash of guilt there too. Sam hoped Adam would let Dean know it wasn’t his fault he was dead. 

Dean must’ve known Sam was watching him, because he sighed and said, “This one’s for you, Sam . . . He’s passing the torch.” 

Sam looked at Adam, and Adam nodded. “Pretty much . . . they need an instruction manual, and if I told Dean it wasn’t his fault I’m dead, he wouldn’t believe me . . . Maybe when he gets up here, I’ll have a chance of convincing him it wasn’t, but that’s only because I’ll have an eternity to do it . . . And Bobby . . . you’re a dick . . . I’m still pissed at you, and even if we figure out there’s something more to this . . . I’m still blaming you for sending your hit squad after me and Beth . . . the same way I still blame Jo for shooting her.” Bobby looked like he wished he had a free hand to grab the drink sitting in front of him on the table. _If Adam’s still pissed off with Bobby even after he’s dead, I wonder what Jo thinks about me._

Adam must’ve known what Sam was thinking by the expression on his face, because he said, “Jo wants you to know she doesn’t hold her being up here against you anymore . . . She’s having a harder time getting over you using her death as an excuse to break the world . . . When you get up here, I’d steer clear of Ellen.” 

_I didn’t even think about Ellen. I don’t want to talk about this._ “I get the passing the torch thing . . . I guess, but why’d you choose now to do it?” 

Adam gave him a look, like it was obvious and said, “Are you kidding me? How could you have a meeting like this and not expect me to be a part of it? Whatever is happening with Beth is getting worse and has been for a while . . . I think none of you wanted to admit it before I died, so you all said that I was being paranoid, but I wasn’t, and now you can’t ignore it anymore. Before she went missing for months, you were starting to like her, Sam . . . These feelings you have against her now . . . They started with you getting frustrated, because Dean wouldn’t let you help him with the baby and now it’s every little thing he won’t let you do because you want to help him even though he doesn’t need it, right?” 

Sam nodded. “Yeah, but it’s like . . . I blame Beth for it . . . I’ve kind of always blamed Beth for things . . . even before this though.” 

Adam shook his head slowly while he watched Sam. “Be careful, Sam. Don’t use this as an excuse for you torching the planet . . . that was an entirely different issue.” 

Dean glanced at Adam and added, “Yeah, it’s not why he let Lucifer or the Croatoan virus out or why he killed Jo and wanted those prophecies, or why he did what he did in Vegas . . . And he still would’ve sold Beth off to Crowley, because he wanted that tablet, but this might’ve made it easier for him to do that, and it might explain why he was obsessed with her in between all of that. You didn’t have to sit in a car with him and hear him go on and on about her day after day for no reason.” 

Sam gave Dean an incredulous look and said, “I wasn’t obsessed with –“ Dean silenced him with a look that said, ‘Don’t push it, Sam. Adam and me are just makin’ sure you know you don’t get to skate on what you did to the world because of whatever issues you had with Beth . . . what you did was all on you,’ before he sat back in his chair and went back to looking at his drink. 

Adam noticed Bobby’s interest at what they were saying and said, “What I said about it starting with Sam wanting to help Dean with the baby . . . That’s how it started for you, right? You wanted to help them, and they didn’t need it. You used to say they didn’t have to be the only two going out on supply runs and then you thought they were keeping things from you . . . By the way, it was because they were having the baby and wanted some time to be together before it became obvious they were . . . everyone was always sticking their noses in their business, but hey, you and everyone else just had to have your piece of them, so why care what they wanted, and then the last straw was when they took Vegas without you . . . at some point you transferred all that anger onto Beth . . . not that you weren’t pissed at Dean too, but you were definitely angrier with Beth.” Sam thought Dean might’ve slumped a little when Adam mentioned the part about Dean and Beth wanting to spend time together after they found out she was pregnant, but he didn’t want to draw attention to it. 

Bobby went back to eyeing his drink hard before grumbling, “Seem to remember you joining me on a few of my frustrations.” 

Adam quickly responded, “I was never pissed off about how they handled Vegas . . . and I was never pissed off about how they ran this camp. I only said that I was one time, and that was to them, unlike you, who bitched about it to people every chance you got. I said it because I was afraid I was going to lose them again. I don’t know why the hell you said it. You didn’t know Dean died until I said he did. For all you knew, they hadn’t had any problems at all after they got out of that devil’s trap. You didn’t have to sit there alone for days waiting for Chuck to tell you that Beth was dead too or have to figure out what you were going to tell the kids and the council . . . I did nothing for hours but stare at Dean’s knife and think that it was all on me now . . . Maybe what they did when they took Sam into rehab pissed me off . . . but it’s like I told Beth . . . that was mostly me thinking that now that he was back, it meant I was out, and after all the things he did to them, I didn’t think that was fair.” 

When Adam had finished, Dean looked at him and shook his head. “You weren’t there to keep his seat warm. You never would’ve been out . . . When’d you tell her that?” 

Adam looked down like he regretted saying it before he glanced at Dean and said, “The day of the hit squad. After everything was done and dusted, I don’t think she liked to think about that day all that much, so she didn’t talk about it . . . I’m actually glad she can’t remember it anymore. It was worse than the day I died by a long shot. Anyway it doesn’t matter. I was around long enough to see that’s not how it would’ve been.” Dean didn’t say anything and sat back a little further in his chair. 

Adam decided to get the talk back on track to try and keep Dean from spiraling, but it was probably too late for that. “So, the men at the bars tried to take what they wanted from Beth . . . the women . . . they didn’t handle Dean’s rejection in favor of Beth much better . . . All those people wanted something from them, but it’s different for Bobby or you, Sam, because you’re already close to them, so it gets muddled in the normal feelings you should have for people that are in your family. It just sends those feelings into overdrive and makes you even more dangerous than the people that don’t know them and want something from them without knowing why . . . Ultimately it all ends up the same way though. People want to hurt them somehow.” 

It was vague, but it still made sense to Sam. It was similar enough to his theory. “So, what are some things that set Dean and Beth apart from other people? What would draw other people to them?” 

Adam stated the obvious. “Well, there’s their connection . . . maybe people get envious of what they have and want in on it?” 

Sam leaned forward while he brainstormed and said, “Maybe that’s part of it, but I think it’s focused on Beth and branches out to Dean through their connection . . . what’s special about Beth?” 

Adam snorted. “Too many things to count . . . How many shiny parts does she have now that she’s regrowing parts of her soul? How many people can tap into their souls? How many people were living souls in Heaven? Or –“ 

Dean, continuing to stare at his drink, said, “How many humans can call in the calvary the way she does?” 

Adam almost excitedly sat forward and said, “Yeah . . . God doesn’t even talk to the angels anymore, let alone humans.”

“Why would that make me want to kill her sometimes?”

Dean gave Sam a look, and Sam ignored it, while he listened to Adam’s answer. “I think you’re getting things crossed again, Sam . . . When you wanted to kill her in the past, it was because you were jealous and thought she was trying to take Dean away from you . . . same reason you tried to throw me to a basilisk. If it's tied to her being able to ask God for help on things, then it feels more like it's driven by envy than jealousy . . . as in some people can sense she has something they want, but they don't think she deserves it. I mean, why did you say what you said to her the other night? You don't think she deserves Rogue, but maybe what you really don't think she deserves is that connection to God. Same with Randy and the wall crew. They wanted to knock her down a peg or two, because they didn't think she deserved to be in charge.” 

Dean had a different question. “Why doesn’t it affect the hunters that have been following us all over the country or the kids?” 

Adam and Sam were quiet while they thought of that one until Bobby said, “I was always lookin’ for the stuff she did that I thought was wrong . . . even started twisting the good things she did into somethin’ bad . . . and Rufus always defended her and Dean . . . found Dean inspiring . . . said he’d follow Dean anywhere . . . You tell Rufus I told you that, and I will hunt you down.” 

_There might be an explanation for that, but Dean won’t want to hear it._ “Maybe for the other hunters and the kids at our camp, Dean and Beth live up to the honor of having God’s trust? For the hunters, it’s because of the way they hunt, and for the kids, it’s because they see them as their saviors.” 

Dean got annoyed just the way Sam thought he would. “You know it’s not just me and Beth . . . They didn’t just try to kill her here. They tried to kill Adam and Cas too . . . It’s like some people want to strip Beth of everyone and everything that’s important to her . . . I can get behind what Adam's saying about envy. What I want to know how to stop it from bleeding over onto Rogue.” If Dean really believed that was a possibility, then maybe they needed to dig a little deeper.

Sam looked at Bobby and asked when it started for him. Bobby looked like he was going to shrug, and Adam quickly said, “When we got here. When the world was fine. He wasn't like that.” 

Bobby sighed when everyone looked at him to see if Adam was right. “He’s not wrong . . . the world got a whole lot more dangerous, and I felt like I needed them more.” 

Adam added, “All I know is that after the world came crashing down, people paid more attention to her . . . what happened here would’ve never happened before that.” Maybe there was something to this. 

“But it got worse when she brought me down in Vegas, right? There were no assassination attempts before that . . . what if it gets worse whenever there is a shift in the Force.” 

Dean abruptly replied, “This isn’t Star Wars. She’s not Luke Skywalker, and you’re not Darth Vader . . . if anything, she didn’t start tapping into her soul until after the outbreak. How does that tie into the God thing?” 

Sam and Adam looked at each other. It seemed like Dean was a few steps ahead of them and kept losing patience when they got off course. “Do you think it gets worse or better the more she uses it?” Sam asked looking at Dean. 

Dean shook his head and looked down at his drink again before he said, “I don’t know. It’s not just one or the other. I think it’s both. She used to think the first time she got any kind of an answer from God was after what you did to her trying to find Lilith . . . makes sense . . . She shouldn’t have made it, but I didn’t notice anything getting worse after that. Not sure God got involved enough to make it happen . . . The first time she tapped into her soul was maybe 3 weeks after the outbreak to get rid of those guys that had Tamara and Jimmy . . . That’s not too long before Bobby started in on his bitching about us not being here as much as we should be. When we came back here after what happened in Wyoming, things were worse. People watched us more . . . Then the wendigo farm happened, and I don’t know if things got worse . . . When I wasn’t working, I mostly spent my time with her . . . didn’t really care about what anybody else was doing. She had some help from God getting out of that vault in Vegas and then she did the soul thing to take you down. After that assassination attempt in the woods, but not until months later, and she got help from God on that one too . . . It’s been like 5 months since Nova Scotia . . . if the hunters and kids at the camp aren’t going to turn against her, the only gauge we have on it is you, and you’ve been a dick for months now . . . but you’ve been a hell of a lot worse since -” 

Adam jumped in when he saw what Dean meant. “She tapped into her soul to deal with that Changeling.” Dean gave Sam a look that said, ‘See, it’s connected somehow, because after that you got worse.’ 

Sam glanced at Bobby and Adam, and neither one of them looked like they knew what to say. He didn’t either. They were nearly there, but he didn’t think they had enough pieces of the puzzle to put it together yet, so Sam said, “I don’t think we have enough to put all the pieces together, but you know who I think does? Gabriel. What do we know about how she was raised?” Nobody said anything, because they wanted to know where he was going with it. “By all accounts, he was a great Dad, right? But how did he raise her? He prepared her for everything she’d need to know to –“ 

Dean cut in and said, “Be a hunter? Yeah, he did . . . He showed her our lives. His number one rule wasn’t ‘Don’t break the law.’ It was that she couldn’t get caught if she did. I used to think that she learned as much about picking pockets and grifting as she did science.” 

Sam sat forward and said, “What if he knows? What if it’s in one of the lessons he taught her growing up? Like the way he had her go over case files with him . . . that definitely would’ve appealed to the Justice part of her soul, and that’s the part she uses to suss out what people have done wrong.” 

Adam contributed by saying, “He used to blow up her snowmen, so she’d have to ask him for help the next time . . . probably to teach her how to ask for help, because she’s terrible at it.” 

Dean didn’t really like that. “I don’t know . . . I think he actually liked doing that stuff with her.” 

Sam nodded and said, “I’m sure he did. The guy I saw having her read to him when she was little wasn’t putting on an act. He meant it. He wasn’t supposed to interfere after he dropped her off with us, but the second she found him on that Trickster case, he started keeping an eye on her. He was there when she was alone with Michael, and when she left here on her own right after the outbreak. That tells me she means a lot to him if he’s willing to break the rules like that, but when he left her with us that first time, he didn’t think he was going to see her again, so he made sure she was prepared for everything. He just made it fun for her and built her up instead of tearing her down to do it. That’s what a good Dad does.” 

Bobby cleared his throat and said, “What if the blowing up snowmen thing wasn’t just to teach her to ask for help . . . it might’ve been, but when the world blows up, maybe it was to teach her to ask someone a lot stronger than her to help.” 

Sam took a deep breath before he sat back and said, “God? So, she should ask God for help, and not tap into her soul to deal with things?” 

Dean shrugged. “Or she shouldn’t ask for anything, because when she did, he never gave her what she wanted . . . Could be better or worse, but she stopped asking for specific presents the older she got, and she doesn’t ask for specific things for God . . . they just happen without her knowing.” 

Sam sighed and said, “So, it could be either one . . . or maybe it’s both? She’s supposed to ask, but not expect to get what she wants? Do things get worse if it goes too long between times that she asks God for help and then handles something herself by tapping into her soul? But then why did the thing that happened here in the woods happen if she did both in Vegas?” 

Adam had been quiet for a while and finally said, “Maybe you guys are kind of right and kind of wrong. People must be able to sense that she has this direct line to God . . . Most people with access to that kind of power would ask for God to fix the world. Maybe she can’t fix the world and set everything back to the way it was or get her memories back just by asking, but people don’t know that and are waiting for her to do it without knowing why, and then she goes and does something like tap into her soul to fix something herself, and it pisses people off even more? I don’t know where I’m going with this, but what if it’s no win situation? People are envious that she has access to God that they don’t think she deserves, so they feel like they have to take everything else from her, but they get just as pissed off when she does things herself and doesn’t use that connection she has to God to fix things they think she should . . . People just don’t know that’s why they feel what they feel around her or why they think they need her, when it’s not her they need, it’s God?” 

Okay, so how did they get around that? “Why do you think it didn’t happen with you?” 

Adam shrugged and said, “I guess I just . . . none of that stuff ever mattered to me. I can’t explain it, but the first time I met her, I felt like she was a long lost sister. After Mom died, I felt like Beth was the only family I had left even though I just met her . . . and then I met my real long lost brothers, but for a long time, I still felt closer to Beth. It’s a big part of the reason I wanted to start hunting. I was tired of waiting to get a call from Dean saying that she wouldn’t be coming back . . . I wish I was down there and could help her the way I used to help her, but I can’t. You can, and I know it’s not easy. She does a lot of really dumb things without telling you she’s going to do them, but you can’t let it change how you feel about her. You have to learn how to roll with what she does and trust that she’ll come out of it okay in the end, but to do that, you have to care about her as a person, not just someone that can help you be redeemed.” 

Sam wasn’t sure he could do what Adam was saying he had to do. It meant a major shift in his thinking. For the few months before her memories were erased, Beth was someone he considered a possible friend and was starting think of as family, but more in a sister-in-law kind of way. Adam was expecting more than that from him. “Like I said. I know it’s not easy. It’s why I wanted to give you a master class on Beth . . . I want to see what you think of some of the things she did with me on hunts and find out what you would’ve done if you’d been me . . . and I’ll try to explain some of her quirks, because I know Dean won’t explain them to you, and she’s got a lot of them.” 

Sam sighed before he said, “I can’t promise anything, but I’ll see what I can do . . . maybe how she came up with Rogue would be a good place to start . . . and then we’ll go onto hunting, so I can see what I’m in for here.” 

Adam grinned. “Rogue’s an easy one. Beth researched female comic book characters with green eyes and tried them out to see which one the baby liked. She wanted her daughter to have a name, but it had to be the right fit, and she thought Rogue was old enough to have some choice in it . . . And because she thought it was hilarious and wanted to annoy Dean.” 

Dean smiled again briefly, but didn’t say anything. Sam thought it was intriguing that she knew something like that would annoy Dean if she hadn’t known Dean for more than a couple weeks by that point. Adam looked at Dean, but directed what he said next to Sam. “She’s still in there, Sam. She knows who Dean is. She can feel it even if she can’t remember it. If she couldn’t, then she would’ve kept walking that first night Crowley brought her back.” 

Dean glanced at Adam, like that was something he knew, but had needed to be reminded of it, and Sam thought briefly of what Gabriel told Dean before he hid Dean’s memories of meeting her when they were teenagers. Gabriel said then that even if Dean didn’t remember her, he’d know her. Maybe it was the same thing?

They were wrapping things up after Adam told him about some of their hunts, and Sam found himself not really wanting Adam to go, so he asked, “Any idea why she didn’t ask for help when she was in labor?” 

“You mean from you?” Sam nodded, so Adam said, “She’s really modest around most people . . . you should’ve heard her complaining about you trying to walk in when she didn’t have a shirt on after that Jenny Greenteeth case. She wouldn’t let it go all night . . . I think that pissed her off almost as much as you being on the demon blood again,” Adam paused when Sam laughed before adding, “And . . . The only reason she asked Cas for help is because she was worried about Rogue . . . If it’d just been her, she never would’ve done that. She’s learning, but she’s still not very good at knowing what her body can handle and what it can’t, and that’s why Dean is being so overbearing on this smoke inhalation thing and why he will be every time she gets hurt now that she’s blocking it from happening to him. She will say something is okay or fine when it’s not, because she believes it is, and she never gives herself enough time to recover. She was a living soul without a body for too long. She doesn’t really know how to live in one.” 

Sam glanced at Dean, and Dean sighed before he nodded to confirm that. It was another fundamental thing she didn’t understand in addition to not knowing how she felt about Dean or her daughter. Sam thought now that Dean must also use his part of their connection to gauge how bad something was with her if she thought things were fine when they weren’t. Things were a lot more complicated than he’d thought. He didn’t know how Adam kept everything straight, because every time Sam thought he had something figured out, he found out he was wrong, so he said that, and Adam grinned before he said, “Must be because I was getting a degree in Engineering, Stanford. Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll catch up,” before he was gone, Missouri was back, and Bobby and Dean took off with the bottle of whiskey to parts unknown.


	36. Fatherly Advice

Bobby took Dean on a tour of the new main cabin. It was rougher around the edges and made of logs instead of boards, but the layout was pretty much the same. The tour was really just a way for them to get reacquainted without havin’ to say much. Neither one of ‘em wanted to talk about what happened the last time he saw Dean. Enough on that had already been said during their little meet and greet with Adam. 

Going to the whiskey cabinet in the study, Bobby got a bottle and poured two glasses, one for him, and the other for Dean. He shook his head, thinking about Adam. Hearin’ that Dean had been the one with Adam when he died . . . well, Bobby knew what that must’ve done to Dean and that Dean woulda bottled it up like they all did when a loss like that happened. Meant their séance woulda opened those wounds. Neither one of ‘em needed to talk about Adam any more than they needed to talk about Bobby completely losin’ his mind, and well, Bobby didn’t wanna think about what he did the last time Adam was here either.

Dean sat across from Bobby’s desk and pulled his feet up to rest on it. It looked like Dean was gonna say somethin’ until he looked around the room they were in and decided to drain his glass before grabbing for the bottle and filling it again. Bobby hadn’t thought about it, but his study was set up in what would’ve been Dean and Beth’s old room. Course he didn’t think it looked the same at all anymore, but it didn’t mean that Dean didn’t. “So . . . tell me. How are you takin’ to bein’ a father,” Bobby said swallowing his own feelings on being a Dad if it meant he could keep Dean’s thoughts from spiraling. 

Dean smiled briefly before he leveled his eyes at Bobby’s and said, “There’s nothin’ I wouldn’t do for her.” That said it all. Was a time when Bobby felt the same about Dean and Sam. He still felt it even though he didn’t understand where it all went wrong. They were workin’ on it. That was a start.

“What’s she like?” Bobby asked after finishing his drink and pouring another. He wanted more details on her, and he wasn’t sure when he’d get the chance to hear about her again, let alone see her. 

Dean grinned again while he looked at the drink in his hands and said, “She’s smart . . . loves books . . . Her favorite is All My Friends Are Dead . . . makes me read it to her whenever I can . . . loves Zeppelin, so I must be doing something right. I think she knows I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time, so she makes it easy on me . . . might be about to change. She’s crawling now. She gets into stuff she shouldn’t, and if you tell her ‘no’ she gets this defiant look and tries to do it anyway . . . kinda what I think . . . ” Dean left his sentence hanging while his smile faded and then he drank some of his whiskey. 

Bobby could read between the lines. Dean was proud of her, but it seemed like Dean thought she took after Beth a lot and didn’t want to get into that. That’s why Bobby didn’t mean to bring Beth up at all when he said, “Sounds like someone’s got a sense of humor if that’s the book she makes you read to her.” 

Dean ducked his head while he nodded. “Yeah . . . it was Beth’s book. She doesn’t remember it . . . every memory of your old place is gone, but she still thinks it’s funny that Rogue makes me read it,” before he downed his whiskey and filled it up again. 

Bobby decided to try and change the subject. “You keepin’ her away from the monsters out there all right?” 

Dean sighed and glanced at him before he looked away and said, “Was until about 6 weeks ago. Took her with us to deal with the Alpha Changeling in New York. Sam and me were hunting it. The Alpha went to the motel. Beth had to deal with it . . . She got Rogue outta there and went back in with another mother changeling . . . The place was up in flames . . . almost lost her.” 

_Alpha Changeling?_ Bobby wasn’t going to question Dean’s parenting. The way he saw it Dean did the best he could. Didn’t want his daughter bein’ far from him or left behind on her own in South Dakota when there were plenty of other things out there that would want to get their hands on Dean Winchester’s daughter and Sam Winchester’s niece. “Yeah, well . . . you keepin’ her close is the safest place for her until there’s nothin’ left to hunt you or her . . . bound to happen some time. Can’t keep her from it forever. Not now,” Bobby responded intentionally not bringing up Beth or how he wanted to know if she was really okay now. 

Dean’s look let him know he’d already considered what Bobby had said, but there was more to Dean’s look than that. Bobby realized they were sparring with each other only he hadn’t known it until then. There may be things neither of ‘em wanted to say, but they were things that maybe needed to be said. Dean was gauging Bobby’s responses or lack of responses to things he said about Beth to see if Bobby was really in his right mind now. “Ah balls . . . I ain’t gonna let somethin’ like this be an excuse for what I did, Dean . . . I hold myself accountable for it . . . just thought maybe you didn’t wanna talk about her with what’s goin’ on . . . you look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders. So, if you’ve got somethin’ you’ve gotta get off your chest, go on and do it,” Bobby finally said before he drained his glass and reached for more from the bottle. Good thing he had a stash in here. They should be set for the night. 

Dean watched him and shook his head while he lifted his glass and said, “I hold you accountable for it too, Bobby. If I’m drunk and go out and kill someone . . . that’s still my fault . . . I need know how you gave into it.” 

That wasn’t what Bobby was expectin’. He didn’t know how to explain it, so he nursed his drink while he thought about it. “When I was with Rufus on that second to last convoy out of Las Vegas . . . between him and James, I might’ve started to come around . . . Started thinkin’ I should tell you and Beth how proud I was of what ya were doin’ instead of givin’ you a hard time . . . thought maybe it was down to empty nest syndrome . . . you two were growin’ up and movin’ on with your lives . . . somethin’ other parents have to go through when their kids stop comin’ to ‘em for advice on things . . . and then you sent me and Rufus back out, and we knew what you were doin’. I thought if anyone had the right to be by your side . . . than it was me, but I got sidelined . . . probably why I got so mad and used to think I was the only one runnin’ this place . . . it felt like I was sidelined . . . and forgotten. And then we came back without Beth or Sam . . . you worked hard those 6 weeks you were here, but it was clear you didn’t wanna be here . . . and then you took off too . . . that was it. I felt like I’d been abandoned and forgotten and it made me do somethin’ you had to notice . . . makes me sound like a damn needy baby, but that’s what it was.” 

Dean took it all in but didn’t say anything. Was a time Dean woulda come up with a smart ass comment to that, but it wasn’t in Dean to do it at the moment. Life had taken its toll on him. “You think sending her away from Sam until we figure this out would make it worse?” 

Bobby took a deep breath and said, “I don’t know . . . Sam never felt like Beth was family, but Cas takin’ her mighta been what started Sam off on it . . . I only know how it made things worse for me.” Dean nodded, like he’d consider it, and Bobby asked, “You thinkin’ of sending her away to keep her safe from Sam or you?” 

Dean polished off what was in his glass and sighed. “Both. I’m not leavin’ Sammy again after what happened the last time I did. And . . . what if . . . she’s not the same. She is and she’s not and I’m tryin’. . . thought I had a handle on things till we came back here. Now all I can see are the differences. There’s the old Beth, and there’s the new Beth, and being here . . . this room says it all . . . It’s like our old room, but it’s not. It’s like I’m dividin’ up the two Beth’s the way I did Rachel and Beth . . . and I don’t want . . . I can’t go down the path you and Sam did.“ 

“Won’t happen with you, Dean. Nobody in your position would adjust that easy. That’s normal, but you’ll never want to hurt or kill Beth . . . don’t matter if she can remember your history or not . . . just you wantin’ to send her away is a sign of that . . . things really that bad?” 

Dean looked at his empty glass and said, “Didn’t think they were, but I can’t keep searching for something I don’t think I’ll ever get back every time I talk to her. It’s not fair to her.”

“How is she?” 

Dean grabbed the new bottle Bobby pulled out and topped himself up before he said, “When she hunts, she’s exactly the same, and she still loves games . . . She’s the most like her at night when she thinks everybody is asleep except our daughter . . . She still talks to me more than she talks to anyone else . . . the problem is she doesn’t know who she is anymore, so she puts on an act and pretends to be the way she thinks other people expect her to be . . . she even does it with me sometimes, and she’s been back for about 4 months.” 

Bobby shook his head before he sat back in his chair to relax now that he realized Dean needed advice. “Sounds to me, like she’s tryin’, Dean. If she weren’t, then you could worry. It ain’t easy to start again, and she’s walking into a camp of . . . what’d you say? 1000 people? That’s a lot of people to meet for the first time when they all know your name and more about you than you do . . . unless there’s a way to talk Cas into –“ 

“She can’t get those memories back. I’m afraid it’ll make her remember what happened to her up in Heaven.” 

To Bobby it seemed like Dean still loved the new Beth if he didn’t want the new Beth to get those memories of Heaven back; whatever the cost to Dean was. Bobby nodded and said, “Then you’ll just have to work at it.” She sounded like she was still the same, just unsure of herself now. Dean would have to come to that conclusion on his own. 

Bobby might’ve been far enough along to say something else to Dean. Something he didn’t want to say, but he could put his discomfort over it aside for Dean. “You know . . . it occurs to me that what’s goin’ on with you ain’t a lot different than what happened . . . when Death brought Karen back.” 

Dean quickly looked up at Bobby and started to indicate that Bobby didn’t have to go there for him, but Bobby cut him off to say, “Now . . . let me say this. You thought Beth was gone with how long she disappeared . . . might as well have been dead to ya. You don’t have to say that for me to see it . . . and then you got her back the same way I got Karen back. My Karen remembered me. Knew everything about our life. Your Beth doesn’t, but at least she’s back for good, so you have time to work on it. I got a week with Karen again, and I’d take that over not . . . even with the way it ended . . . When she was back, I didn’t focus on the things that were wrong even though I saw ‘em. What I focued on were the small things I forgot about her . . . Things nobody else knew about . . . the things that made her my wife. With Beth you need to do the same. There ain’t nobody that knows her as well as you . . . even now. Live in those small moments. Don’t think of the big picture, and you’ll have a chance at gettin’ that life back. May not be quite the same, but bein’ different don’t mean its worse . . . might even be better . . . Work with what you’ve got, and forget about the past, cuz none of us are sure of our future.” 

Dean ducked his head again, and Bobby wasn’t sure if anything he said sunk in or not. Dean would have to figure that out on his own too. Bobby was learning he could give advice and would have to live with it if they didn’t listen. He wasn’t going to go down that path again . . . ever.


	37. Learning Lessons

I walked into the kitchen looking for the hunter-training manual. “Hey, Jody. You haven’t seen –“ She took a drink of coffee while she slid the manual across the kitchen table towards me. I’d found it upstairs yesterday and wanted to use it today. Thought I left it in the other room, but she must’ve picked it up to have a look. 

I flipped through the book and made sure she was still okay with the arrangements we’d made yesterday. “You’re sure you don’t mind watching Rogue? She should sleep for another hour or two before she wants to get up for the day.”

“Are you kidding me? I’ve been lookin’ for an excuse to have a chance to look after her. It’ll be like a vacation . . . The teens like to put you through the ringer and see what you can do. You have to pass their standards before they’ll listen to you. Means I have to run the course with them, and I’m tired of it.” 

I went to grab something for breakfast from one of the cupboards . . . _Hm. Pop Tarts. I didn’t know we had these. They’re mine now._ I made myself some hot chocolate and joined her at the table.

“I ever tell you how we first met?” Jody asked while she looked at her coffee. 

I broke off the corner of my stale Pop Tart and said, “I don’t know if you ever told me, but I know you haven’t since I’ve been back,” before I popped it in my mouth. 

“How ‘bout we say I meant it as a figure of speech and never told you? We were both too busy doing our own things for me to say anything about it after I figured it out. See . . . I thought the first time we met was here at Bobby’s . . . There was a zombie epidemic in town, and Sam and Adam came to help me get the people in town to safety before I came back here with them. They couldn’t get back here fast enough. Said the zombies were all heading to Bobby’s, and they wanted to help Bobby, Dean, and you.” 

She watched me to see if that rang any bells. It didn’t, so she continued, “Anyway. When we got here, the three of you pretty much had it handled. We met. I helped get the zombies on the burn pile, and then I went back into town to let the people out that we’d put in the jail to keep safe . . . couldn’t go home. I lost . . . I lost some people that night. It wasn’t my home anymore, so I stayed in the jail that night and did everything I could not to go back to that empty house every day after that. Then Bobby called a few months later and told me about the Croat virus. You’d been taken by some demon named Crowley, so Dean went to get you, and we met up with you in Wisconsin . . . wasn’t until maybe a few weeks later that it finally hit me after I saw the way you were with Adam one time . . . that zombie incident wasn’t the first time we’d met,” she paused, and I slowly nibbled on another corner of my Pop Tart. It was like getting a bedtime story for breakfast. It didn’t feel like me she was talking about, but I found it entertaining, and now I knew how I got away from Crowley the time he had me.

She got up and poured herself some more coffee before she came back to her chair and said, “No . . . you scammed me the first time we met. Adam was in town shooting up garbage cans, and we got a call in at the station about it, so I went to go pick him up. He didn’t offer any resistance . . . was super polite and quiet. Gun was already gone by the time I got there. Almost didn’t think he was the perp except he fit the description. He asked for his one phone call, and I’m guessing he called you. You came in maybe half an hour later pretending to be a Federal Marshal. Said he was in WITSEC . . . had all the forms . . . put me through to your commanding officer . . . I’m guessing it was Sam or Dean, and then I handed him right on over . . . handed over the papers too, so I didn’t leave a paper trail . . . that was the first time we met.” 

Sounded like something I would do even if I didn’t remember it. I tore off another piece of my stale Pop Tart and said with a smile, “You gonna arrest me?” before happily munching away on it. 

Holding her cup of coffee in both hands, she looked down at it with a shake of her head before she glanced at me. “No . . . I’ve seen too much, and I know why you did it. But when it hit me that was you . . . the first thing I thought was that girl knows how to run a scam . . . good actress . . . hearts in the right place, and she saves a lot of people doin’ it . . . You need to use that skill with those kids out there, cuz I know you still have it . . . They’ve been through a lot, and they need to believe in you. You need to approach this the way you do a hunt . . . or a jail break . . . don’t let them know how lost you are. They’re counting on you to lead them.” 

_Ah, so there is a reason for this history lesson._ It was kind of a lecture combined with a pep talk. I thought I did a decent job letting them know I knew what I was doing. Maybe I wasn’t doing a good enough job. It was valuable feedback. I had to do better. I nodded that I understood. My Pop Tart was done, so I got up with a quick thanks to Jody and headed outside to go see the layout of the course. I hadn’t really had much interest in my surroundings for the month I was here before I went on that vamp hunt and then the hunt for the Alpha Changeling. This place needed a lot of work.

When the kids started coming out of their cabins, they were surprised to see me. Some of them looked like they were a bit apprehensive about it. They didn’t think I could do this anymore. In fact a couple of the older ones decided they were going to help me and stood next to me to start getting the other kids in line. 

“Thanks . . . but, I’ve got this . . . We’re changing it up today. We’re going to do training from this book,” I said holding up my handbook. Some of the kids looked at each other and clearly didn’t think we should be deviating from the plan, because they thought I was a loon, so I added, “This is the book Dean wrote to train me . . . If you guys don’t think you can handle it . . . then we can go back to your kiddie training and –“

A couple of the teenagers that’d been trying to help me at the start . . . Ty and Jenna . . . they grinned at each other, and Jenna said, “We can handle anything you’ve got,” before Ty said, “How hard could it be? We already train all day every day?” 

“No you don’t. You guys have school a good part of the day . . . I bet you I’m the only one left standing by the end of this.” 

One of the other teenagers . . . I think her name was Andrea . . . Anyway, she asked, “What do we get when we win?” 

I looked around at all their faces and said, “I’ll train the ones left standing on the angel blade everyday for a week . . . If you lose, I name the price,” before I took off running the other way while they all considered the terms of our bet. 5 miles. I could do that in my sleep, but they were a hell of a lot younger than me, and I needed to push them as hard and as fast as I could early on if I wanted to win. I already knew what we would work on if they lost. 

The teens kept up pretty well on the run. Then it was on to the first 50 push-ups before we went on to disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling 5 guns for time. I finished that in no time. The smaller kids were still running in from their 5-mile run, so I told them to do 50 push-ups while also keeping an eye on the teens to make sure they didn’t cheat. 

When the teens were done reassembling their 5th gun, I had them put all 5 guns in wooden crates about 20 feet away and told them to do their next 50 push-ups over there, so the next teens in line could start cleaning and disassembling. Once the crates were full, we stacked them up, and the plan was for the kids who were big enough to carry the crates to take them to each of the cabins and house after they tapped out of our competition. Until now, all the guns had been stockpiled in a couple of out of the way sheds. There’d been no rhyme or reason to them. 

Now if we were attacked, it’d save us from having to dig around for weapons. The teens in the cabins were going to be responsible for making sure they were cleaned on a regular basis, and they weren’t getting ammo, so I didn’t have to worry about them shooting each other. It was a good thing I got out here early to get all of these stations set up, or this wouldn’t have worked, and it had to work for their training, but also for the camp. 

This place had no walls for protection. I knew it had wards, but those didn’t stop everything, so we needed all of these guns to be clean and ready for use. I honestly don’t think Sam or Dean’d had much interest in this place when they were setting it up . . . maybe it’s because of all the attention that Dean had to give Rogue for those 3 months I was away, but I was here now, and I was ready to fix things around here.

After the last of the little kids cleaned their guns, we still had a lot of guns left over, so it looked like these kids would be cleaning weapons all week during their training. Once the little kids had done their next 50 push-ups, we moved on to the shooting range. “50x each is what I did . . . with each of these . . . but I don’t want to waste too much ammo, so we’ll go with 10x each on the sniper rifle, shotgun, and handgun. When you’re done, it’s 50 more push-ups, and you can go help Jody with lunch while the little kids have a chance at the targets.” 

“Lunch?” _Which kid asked that?_ I looked at my watch. We’d been at it already for at least 4 hours with all the time it took to get 1000 kids through the gun station. 

“Yeah . . . lunch. It’s 11 . . . it’ll be probably 12 or 1230 by the time you’re all done shooting . . . and keep tabs. I want somebody to write down the number of bullseyes out of 10 . . . and we’re tossing 10 car parts in the air at the end for the older kids to see how you are with a moving target . . . we need to keep track of your progress, and the only way to do that is to write it down.” 

A teen named Cormac volunteered to start writing down everyone’s scores, so I let him run back to his cabin to grab a notebook. Thank goodness we had a massive amount of ammo here. Even with them shooting10 times each, that was 10,000 rounds plus another 5000 or so for the teenagers on hitting a moving target. They couldn’t do this every day, or we’d run out. I think I wanted to see what they could do, so this was my test for them.

While we were waiting for Cormac, a kid name Ben asked, “What about you?” 

I smiled. “You want me to go first to see if I can still shoot, since you all think I lost my mind?” Some of the kids looked like they weren’t sure how to respond to that, so I said, “All right.” 

Ty looked like he was going to say something, so Jenna said, “Let her try it.” _Let me try it? Please._

I took the sniper rifle, laid it in a steady position on some stacked up sandbags they used as a barrier for the firing range, loaded it, checked the sights, lined up my shot, exhaled, and pulled the trigger . . . bullseye. One of the teens said, “Let’s see you do it again.” _Okay._ I did it again. 

When the kids all started looking around at each other happily, I said, “You want me to do it from further away? Pick a place. Any place.” 

One of them said, “The roof of the house.” Now they were just being silly. I slung the rifle strap over my shoulder, went back to the house, a good distance away, and set about climbing up there . . . I found a place at the very top, lined up my shot, and took it. One of the kids went to go check, but I didn’t need them to confirm it for me to know I’d hit it again. I loved the sniper rifle. It was my second favorite next to my handgun. 

When I got back to them and started lining up my next shot, I said, “You guys gonna stand around all day watching me, or am I gonna be the only one that finishes this today?” 20 of the oldest teens went up to the other sniper rifles next to the one I was using to have their chance, and the other kids all lined up for it behind them. They were really good kids and needed very little direction. 

By the time that was done, and we’d had lunch, it was hitting 13:30. “How much more is there to do?” one of the kids whined. 

“Well, there’s the crossbow and knives . . . then we try the moving target on the crossbow . . . and then more push-ups, machete drills, breaking into locked cars, and there should be a place around here that’s set up with some old security systems, locks, and a safe at the end . . . you’ll have to show me where it is, because I’m pretty sure you guys know every inch of this place by now . . . Then it’s the wall, three times up it, across the roof, down the other side, over the chain length fence behind it . . . and go back the same way you went . . . then we spar for 3 hours, and it’s lore training for 3 hours.” 

One of the kids said, “We’ll never get that done today.” 

I shrugged. “I’ll be out here all night if I have to be . . . don’t take a bet you’re not sure you’ll win.”

By the time we got to the security system, we were down by half of the kids. The kids that were out of the competition were still watching, but having to run five miles, do a few hundred push-ups, shoot 40-60 times, shoot a crossbow 50 times, and throw a knife 50 times along with practicing machete skills on practice dummies was a lot for the smaller kids to do.   
Most of the kids under 14 hadn’t been able to finish with the knives or machete practice drills. 

Then we got to the wall. They were already tired, so I didn’t let them rest. I went first on that too, and was up on the roof looking behind me to see who would follow before they knew it. “You guys coming?” Some of them looked reluctant, so I said, “At least try it. You’ve already made it this far. You can go a bit farther . . . We’ll have dinner after this if the kids that are watching go and help Jody, Olga, and Tatiyana make it . . . then it’s 3 hours of sparring . . . 3 hours of lore training, and we’re done.” 

Andrea rolled her eyes at the others and came sprinting towards the rope. She struggled with it until she was at the top, but she made it. “Good job . . . apparently I hated this wall . . . see . . . I wrote it . . . a few times,” I said pulling out the notebook to show her page after page of my sketches of the wall and ‘I hate the wall’ drawn in graffiti on it. 

She smiled briefly at it and touched the page for a few seconds. “This is really how you trained?” I nodded, so she said, “But you don’t remember? You don’t know why you did it?”   
That I did have an answer to, so I showed her the page where I’d written ‘Get faster. Get a job. Get money to fund a life on the road. Be a hunter.’ That seemed to have been my 4-step plan when I started. 

“What kind of a job did you get?” Ty asked when he got to us. 

I shook my head slightly while I flipped through the notebook and said, “I got a job at Yuri’s . . . I’m guessing the Yuri that’s out there hunting with Ivan had a bar . . . there aren’t too many jobs where the hours are 8 pm to 1 am,” when I found the pages where I’d written my schedule down for the week. Maybe I had more notes around here I could use to try and get to know myself a bit better.

By the time we were done with all the physical stuff, it was close to 10:30 that night. It was a good thing more and more of the kids had been dropping out the longer it went, or we would’ve been doing this well into the next day. By 10:30, I had 3 left. 

“Why do we have do this? It’s the weekend. We’re supposed to have a break from school on the weekend,” Andrea complained while I tried to pick 4 books out of the den library . . . _hmmm . . . sirens, okami, sprites, and rugarus._

“You have to know what you’re training to fight, and there’s always more to learn. What you cover in school isn’t all there is on each monster out there,” I said handing them each a book. 

Ty asked, “Is there going to be a test?” 

“Yep . . . 10 questions.” 

Jenna didn’t sound like she wanted her book. “Why’d I get stuck with sprites?” 

I flipped a page on okami and said, “They’re annoying little bastards . . . best to read up on them before you have to deal with them . . . they’re not all that easy, and they’re hard to see.” 

Andrea, still stalling, asked, “So, you’ve fought all these things?” 

I nodded. Ty asked, “With Dean?” And I stopped breathing for a second or two. I don’t know why that one got to me. It did. I felt panicked and scared and alone and like I was free falling. 

I forced myself to breath and look normal before I flipped another page and said, “I don’t know . . . I remember the hunts . . . the monsters . . . but I don’t know who I was with when I hunted them . . . some of them I probably did with him . . . maybe all of them, but I couldn’t tell you.” _Please, don’t look sad, guys . . . There’s nothing I can do about it._

I lost myself in the book I was reading, and 3 hours flew. When I looked up again, they were all asleep. _Looks like I won._

I woke them up and told them that I won before adding, “Tomorrow and every day after normal hunter training . . . we’re going to start digging a well with Rob and Carl’s help . . . and we’re digging a pit for a septic tank . . . maybe a couple of each. You need proper running water going into and out of your cabins . . . stealing the water from the mains to the house isn’t ideal. Nobody ends up with more than a drip in the shower, and we are burning those portaloos that are around here when we’re done.” 

Ty rubbed his eyes and said, “That’s it? It’s something we were already going to do when Sam came back.” _In theory._

“Do you guys want the truth?” I leaned forward and rested my elbows on my knees. They all nodded, so I said, “There will always be something that takes Sam or Dean or me away from this camp, because there are a lot of things out there that need fixing. I guarantee you that when they get back here, there will be something else that needs to be done straight away. It’s not intentional. It’s not fair. And it doesn’t mean you’re not important or are forgotten about. It’s just hard to balance everything sometimes when there are only 3 of us, so we’re not waiting for Sam to get back, because you guys have been here for about 7 months, and it still hasn’t been done. Besides, I kind of thought that you guys might want running water, so you can take showers after all the angel blade training you’ll be doing on top of your normal training.” 

Jenna looked at Andrea excitedly, and Ty started to say, “But you said –“ until Andrea told him to shut up. 

I grinned and said, “I forgot my life with Dean. I still remember what I said to you this morning. I said if I won, I could name my price . . . and that’s my price . . . you guys lost fair and square, but you three made it almost to the end, and you’re not touching my angel blade. You can use Dean’s when he gets back.” Something I was learning from them, and I think it was a problem with Dean and maybe even myself . . . Cas took my memories, not my ability to make new ones. I just needed to make new ones, and maybe things would be okay.


	38. Can't Go Back

I watched Sam packing his bags in the cab of a snow plow. “So, now we’re all three going to the Wild West?” 

Dean cleared his throat and said, “Actually, it’s all 4 of us. Unless . . .“ 

I quickly looked at him and said, “Are you fucking kidding me? You’re trying to blackmail me into staying by saying that if I don’t, you’ll take my daughter back in time?” _That is so fucking frustrating._ “What about Jody? She –“ 

“I’m not leavin’ her here on her own.” 

_Jody’s been babysitting her while the kids and me have been digging wells . . . how do you think we got one done all ready and have 4 of the cabins hooked up to it? ___

Dean gave me a look and said, “I’m not leavin’ her here when Crowley or Cas could come take her to use her as a bargaining chip.” He had a point. 

“Fine. We’ll take her, but if she picks up typhoid or dysentery while we’re there, then I’m blaming you,” I said turning to head back into the house. 

He followed me saying, “You’re not taking our daughter back in time.” 

I looked back at him over my shoulder. “You’re the one that brought it up . . . seems to me it was your idea. Unless you want to stay.” 

A couple of the teenagers around the place stopped their hunter training to watch us, and thought it was amusing for some reason. “Come on . . . you know how much I wanna do this one,” Dean answered while he jetted past me and started walking backwards so he could try and talk to me face to face. 

“No, I don’t know that. This is the first I’m hearing of it.” 

He almost smiled. “You can’t pull that this time. I know for a fact we’ve talked about it 10 times since you brought up the time travel spell.” 

I kept walking and said, “Well, good luck getting there without the spell.” 

His shoulders slumped, and he got me to stop before saying, “You’d really hold the spell hostage and let Eve keep killing people and making monsters out of the humans that are left?”

I shook my head. “No, I’ll go while you’re asleep. No cowboys or horses or Phoenix ash for you.” A few of the kids were laughing at us now for some reason. I didn’t know what was so funny. 

“You can’t go,” Dean said putting his arm out to block me from heading up the steps. 

I cocked my head to the side to appraise him. “Really, why’s that, Dean?” 

He thought about it and came up with the worst reasons of all time. “Two reasons. One, the doctor said your lungs still aren’t right, and uh, two . . . you’re a woman . . . women in the Wild West weren’t exactly –“ 

He stopped because of the look I gave him. “So, Annie Oakely and Calamity Jane weren’t women back then?” 

Dean paused for a second and whined, “Come on . . . I’ll never ask you for something like this again . . . just this once.” 

_”Never?”_

He was quiet for a second before his eyes narrowed. “No, you’re not going to Heaven on your own. That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” Fair enough. I did know that, and I knew we weren’t done discussing that one, so I’d put it off for now. 

“I’ll tell you what. We’ll do a practice run using the spell . . . I’ll get us there . . . whatever time period I choose. If you come back using the spell without any problems, than I’m cool with it. I promised your daughter I’d make sure you came back. That’s why I wanted to go. We already live in the Wild West as it is these days anyway . . . except without the brothels, although I’m sure they’re out there somewhere,” I capitulated with a sigh as I sidestepped Dean. 

I stopped on one of the steps when Ben asked Dean what a brothel was before I turned around to see what his response to that would be. Dean looked at Ben and the other kids watching him before he quickly turned to his left and walked the other way. _Ha . . . Oh._ They looked at me, and I decided I wasn’t going to answer that one either, so I did an about-face and carried on walking into the house.

It took us a few days to get where we were going to try out the time spell. I wanted it to be a surprise, but he got tired of me not telling him what we were doing. The way the spell worked, we had to be in the place we wanted to go back in time, which meant we had to drive to Denver first, and that’s all I would tell him. 

When we got to a warehouse district in the city, I had him pull up next to a warehouse that looked like it might be old enough and started grabbing my stuff. “Were you always this impatient?” 

“I’m not impatient. I just wanna know what we’re doing here and why you’re blocking me,” Dean answered before he pulled out his flask and took a swig. He’d been doing that a lot since he got back from Wisconsin. He’d come back different. He’d been okay before he left. He wasn’t now. He didn’t talk about it. The emotions he was feeling . . . there were a lot of them, and none of them were good. The best way I could describe it is that he was . . . forlorn. That’s why I wanted to do this for him. I wanted to give him a surprise to make him feel better. This had to work.

“It’s a surprise. I can’t let you know what I’m thinking,” I answered, picking the lock on the warehouse door. Dean followed me in and kept watch while I set things up in the middle of the floor. When I was ready, I called him over to me to make sure both of us got brought along for the ride. As soon as I was done with the spell, Dean asked if that was it, because nothing happened, or he thought it hadn’t until we heard a car horn blare outside. 

I smiled, quickly stood, and grabbed his hand, so I could drag him with me towards the doors. “We’re hitting up a pizza place first.” When we pulled the door open. There was no snow. There were no Croats. 

Dean beat me through the door and said, “Not a chance. We’re going to get a cheeseburger and fries and pie.” We rounded a corner and stopped to take in the sight of a street that was teeming with cars and people, people that would all be dead in 4 decades, or maybe a lot of them were dead before that. I didn’t know. 

He won out in the end by saying I could have as many milkshakes and pieces of chocolate cake as I wanted if we went with the diner option. I’d never seen him as happy as he was when he got his order. He stuffed his face with his second piece of pie and said he was planning on going through every pie they had on offer. “Any idea how we’re going to pay for this?” 

He stopped and said, “Do a runner?” with his mouth full of food, which made me laugh before I leaned forward, so nobody could hear me.

“I think we can go more subtle than that. I already have a target lined up. Let’s see if you can figure out who.” 

He washed the pie down with some coke before he grabbed a fry off my plate, and said, “Guy behind me, third table from the door to your right.” He was good. He’d picked the right guy even though I was blocking him from knowing what I was thinking. The guy was an obnoxious asshole to his waitress and had been the entire time we’d been there. 

“Why?” 

He glanced up at me before he took another one of my fries and said, “Guy’s a dick . . . It’d serve him right if he had to go up to pay the waitress and didn’t have any cash.” When I stood to go do my thing, Dean stopped me and said, “Try not to hurt yourself . . . you know for your test.” Might be tricky. My test was seeing if the man helped me. If he did, then he could keep some of his money. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t. 

When I went to walk past the man’s table on my way to the bathrooms in the back, I dropped a piece of ice from my drink on the floor in front of me, and intentionally made myself fall on it. It was a brilliant fall. I’m pretty sure my feet went up in the air, and my arms were flailing. Of course it was an act. I knew how to take a fall. 

After landing, I just laid there and looked up at the ceiling. The man hadn’t moved a muscle. He was more annoyed with me than anything. _What a jerk._ I used his table to get back up and disrupted him enough pick his pocket. 

He may not have wanted to help me, but the waitress sure did. She came over to make sure I was steady on my feet and helped guide me over to Dean who was already on his way to help me himself. He met me near the counter, and suggested that we just pay and go, so I could go home and lay down. I discreetly handed Dean the wallet, so it looked like it was his. When he opened it, he was pretty impressed. There had to be about 200 dollars in there. 200 in the 70s must be like a grand, because our food only cost like 4 dollars for everything. 

He tipped her an extra 10 and then we headed out the door. As soon as we were clear of the place, Dean burst out laughing while he mocked me over my fall. “Was it believable?” 

He snorted. “Best one yet, I think.” 

I smiled and said, “Okay . . . give me my cut. If you want your surprise tonight, I need money.” He reluctantly handed half over to me and went back to trying to guess what we were doing here. We walked around soaking up being anonymous in crowds of people and talking until I saw what I wanted to do and started walking towards the movie theater. 

As soon as he saw it, he quickly caught up to me and said, “Soylent Green? You know you’ve seen this, right?” 

“Yeah, but how often are we ever going to get to see it in a movie theater? Never now . . . if I’d picked a day a month or two from now we could’ve seen Enter the Dragon according to that poster, but we’re here now, so . . . let’s go. We’ve got some time to kill anyway.” 

After that he wanted to go see Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. I think he was gearing up for his trip to become a cowboy. By the time that was over, we had enough time to grab pizza on our way to the place I wanted to take him. I told him to stay put while I went over a couple of blocks to get what I needed from a ticket scalper and ran back to get Dean, because we were running out of time. 

“Any ideas yet?” We were nearly there. He’d given up by then, so I said, “Okay, close your eyes. I’ll lead you there. You’re not even trying, so you don’t get see until we’re there.” He was resistant to the idea, but I swore to him it’d be worth it if he did it. He wanted to put a wager on it. I was so confident on it that I told him if he didn’t think it was worth it, I would bring him with me to Heaven. 

As soon as those words left my mouth, he shut his eyes and said, “You’re on . . . what do you get if you win?” 

I smiled while I took his hand to lead him through the crowd. “We’ll do whatever you want to do for the rest of the night.” I wanted him to be happy for a few hours. That’s all what I wanted to get out of this. 

I handed over our tickets, and then we were inside. We just made it. I didn’t even have a chance to tell him he could open his eyes before his eyes shot open at the sound of the opening chords for _Rock and Roll._ When he finally got that he was actually seeing Led Zeppelin playing in their prime on stage in front of us, he leaned down and asked me how I knew. “I remembered seeing the 1973 tour dates on a shirt one time. Not sure where, but I did.” He didn’t even let the fact that I remembered something as meaningless as that when I couldn’t remember our life together stop him from grabbing my hand and leading us closer to the front. 

I’d definitely never seen him that happy. He knew every word . . . every note . . . every drumbeat. He made a couple of friends next to him that loved it as much as he did. It was brilliant to see him like that, and just being there and a part of it with that crowd was . . . electric.

When it was over and we headed away, Dean said with a grin, “So, it’s my choice all night?” 

“A bet’s a bet.” 

He nodded across the street and said, “Let’s go close down one of those bars over there,” before he pulled me towards the one he wanted. As soon as we got in there, he headed straight for the bar and ordered a double whiskey for him and double vodka for me. After we got our drinks, we went over to the pool table. 

I watched him hustle people for ages. He was a genius, and I felt like I’d seen him do this kind of thing at some point. It made me feel proud of him, and it was a feeling I recognized. I kept the drinks coming for both of us, and when people got tired of losing to him, he wanted me to play, so I did. I suck at pool, but I didn’t particularly care. I was happy enough with the few that I sunk while we talked about things that had nothing to do with angels and demons and monsters . . . just normal things. 

We closed the bar down, and then he wanted to go play poker. He’d heard a couple of guys by the bar talking about a game earlier and had found out where it was. While we walked there, he asked if I could play poker, and I exhaled a laugh before I said, “Yeah, of course,” which surprised him. I didn’t understand why until he said he was the one that taught me how to play. 

I guess he was one of the ones that taught me how to hunt, so it shouldn’t have surprised me that he taught me how to play poker too, but it did. It made me stop walking when I felt my mind start to unravel the tiniest bit. I guess he heard it. “What the hell was that?” 

_Long story._ “It’s fine . . . it happened before . . . I’ll be fine. See. I am fine. A few more drinks . . . some poker, and I’ll be right as rain.” He hesitated, but gave me a nod before we carried on walking.

We were a great team when it came to poker. Dean intentionally let me win the whole pot when it came down to him and me. Normally, I wouldn’t want someone to let me win anything. I needed to earn it even if it was by cheating, but I knew we were a team, so our team won, and I split the winnings with him after we left. We used them to book a hotel room, so we could get some decent sleep. If we went back now, we’d have to sleep in a cold warehouse or truck.

“What do you wanna do now?” I asked putting a key into the door of our room.

Dean gave me a grin and said, “I never told you this, but do you know how I know when you’re just shy of being tipsy but not drunk?” _No. I’d say by the look in your eye and what you’re saying that you are just shy of being drunk. Wait. Did he pick up what I was thinking there?_

Dean’s grin got bigger before he said, “Yeah, I did . . . When you’re pissed off you sound Irish . . . When you’re almost tipsy . . . your Hoosier twang comes out more.” 

_What the hell is he talking about?_ “I don’t have a twang.” 

“Yeah, you do. The Hoosier accent is always there a little, but when you’ve been drinking . . . it’s thicker.” 

I smiled as I pushed open the door and said, “When you’ve been drinking you are thicker. Come on. What do you wanna do now? I have a deck of cards, and we’ve got the mini-bar here.” I flipped on the lights, threw my jacket on the end of the bed, and headed for the mini-bar. I felt like I hadn’t had a chance to get even just tipsy in forever. 

Just thinking about the fact that I knew I’d been tipsy before and couldn’t remember it or when the last time was made those parts of me that I needed to not unravel do it just a little bit more. It all kind of started when Ty asked me that question about whether I’d hunted those monsters with Dean a couple weeks ago and was getting worse and more frequent now.

“Is it bad?” When I looked back, Dean had dropped his comedy routine on my accent. His head was bowed before he glanced at me to clarify. “The memory thing . . . is it bad? You think . . . ” He sighed and turned away from me. “You think we can’t even have one of our nights out anymore? If . . . I don’t want . . . it can’t unravel.” 

I came over and handed him a small bottle of whiskey before I said, “It’s like that game Jenga . . . lots of pieces are missing, and it feels like the tower could topple over at any second . . . but I’ve got it. It’s not something you need to worry about.” 

Dean watched me while he unscrewed the cap and took a drink before he said, “I’ll never not worry about you . . . and what happened in Heaven . . . just one of those memories almost killed you . . . do you remember that?” 

He was a lot drunker than I thought. He hid it pretty well until he didn’t have to do it anymore. “No, I don’t remember that.” I wondered if he’d been doubling up the drinks during the poker game, because I wasn’t as drunk as him, and he definitely wasn’t this drunk before that poker game. 

He looked down and said, “I . . . being around me isn’t good for you if it makes it harder to keep those memories blocked.” _Is he planning on sending me away for my own good?_ If I was translating his emotions correctly, that’s what it seemed like he was thinking. 

“Or . . . maybe being around you is exactly what I need . . . maybe that’s the only –“ 

“What was the one thing that gave you hope when you were in Heaven?” I didn’t know and Dean exhaled a frustrated laugh before he went to the minibar and grabbed another bottle. When he turned back around he said, “You didn’t even know me then, and you don’t remember it? . . . It was finding me . . . How are you supposed to deal with getting those memories back if you can’t remember the one thing that got you through them when they were happening?” 

He came back over to me, and I tried to think of the best thing to say and came up with, “Well, I don’t remember it in the memories I have up there, but if the memories you don’t want me to remember are blocked, then maybe how I coped with it up there was blocked from Cas bein’ able to take ‘em.” 

Dean seemed to be working himself up a bit and wasn’t hearing what I was saying, because he looked down at me and asked intensely, “Did you know you were supposed to be a demon after what they did to you?” _What has that got to do with anything? I’m not going to spontaneously turn into one._

“Cas told me in Heaven.” Dean looked up in exasperation before he said, “He let you remember him?” 

“Yeah, you know that. It’s like you told me. All he took was you or anyone I know through you when I was with him. I remember when I met him up there, or when we hunted together, and I remember when he gave me my blade . . . I don’t remember why he gave it to me, but I remember him giving it to me . . . and I knew Crowley . . . not how I got away from him the last time I saw him, but I knew him.” 

Dean almost shouted, “He let you remember Crowley, but there’s not a single fucking memory of me.” 

_Probably shouldn’t have said that._ “Yeah, but he was trying to protect me from –“ 

“I didn’t do it . . . I thought about it . . . we have that Metatron douchebag in Kansas, cuz Cas didn’t want to kill him if he hadn’t done all the shit things he’s supposed to do yet . . . but me . . . I fucking thought about it . . . and he fucking takes you and takes your memories of me away . . . why didn’t he do it to me . . . I’m the one that thought it . . . not you . . . why the fuck did what I told Sam one time fall back on you?”

“I don’t know. He has to know it’s probably not possible . . . an adult soul isn’t as resilient as an infant’s. But then he didn’t think I was possible, so maybe he wasn’t sure. Would you have done it if you could?” 

Dean deflated some and looked down before he said, “Probably . . . that’s the kind of a piece of shit I am, Beth. You shouldn’t be anywhere near me. I wouldn’t have thought that you should have a choice in it any more than Cas did when he took your memories. You would’ve been alive, but you would’ve been some kind of a Beth zombie . . . all I would’ve cared about was if you were safe . . . not what it meant for you.” 

He went to turn away from me again now that he’d downed the second mini-bottle of whiskey, so I grabbed his arm to keep him in place. He stumbled back a bit. I didn’t know how much of this he would remember, but I still asked, “Why would you have done it if you could? Was it really all about your brother dying?” 

He ducked his head and got tears in his eyes while he said, “It was my fault he died. I knew it was a matter of time before I got you killed or worse, and look what happened . . . this is worse than you being dead, and it’s my fault . . . I was trying to do the right thing, and I made it worse, and now if you get those memories of what happened in Heaven back . . . I don’t want that for you.” 

I sighed. “Honestly, me remembering all of those things is long past due . . . If it weren’t for Gabriel blocking those memories from me, I would’ve never forgotten them. And his blocks went away for a reason. I’m supposed to remember them. The only reason I don’t is because I’m a weirdo that had part of my mind figure out how he was doing it, so I could do it for myself after his blocks disappeared.” 

Dean was quiet and then said, “I heard it . . . when it slipped there a minute ago. The screams, the voices . . . if that all came crashing down on you at once . . . it’s not the same as you remembering it while it happened over 29 years . . . it could break your mind . . . you could die . . . Cas used to think it could break your soul.” 

I very much doubted that. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to make sure that doesn’t happen . . . I couldn’t leave our daughter an orphan.” 

He finally looked at me and said, “I don’t think it’d kill me if that’s what kills you . . . wouldn’t be the same as you getting stabbed . . . I’d have to be able to do what you can do with our connection to keep something like that from killing you.” 

_He sure has thought about this a lot._ “I don’t think it’s something that’s going to happen. I don’t want you to –“ 

He cut me off by saying, “I already told you. I’ll always worry about you,” before he took a step forward, wrapped his arm around me, and landed his mouth over mine. 

He tasted like whiskey and felt like the electric pull of a magnet as his tongue quickly found mine. He felt so right. Ever since I met him, I’d been attracted to him. It was everything about him that I could pick up through our connection and could see when I talked to him, like his personality, how hard he fought for everyone, whether he knew them or not, the way he tried to enjoy living the best that he could given the crappy life he’d apparently had, the way he cared about everyone else more than himself, his need for Sam to be okay again after whatever happened to make Sam not okay, the way I could feel that he wanted to be wanted and not just needed, how smart he was, his strength and at the same time his immense vulnerability, the way he felt truly sorry for things he’d done wrong and things he hadn’t even done wrong, the way he moved when he fought, the way he was with our daughter, the way he was with the other kids at the camp, his eyes, his hair, his nose and lips, his body . . . all of him, from head to toe, inside and out . . . I was attracted to him, but I had no idea that this was what I was missing out on or I would’ve tried to jump him a lot sooner. 

As his tongue did things that made me want more of him, I slid my hands up his chest until they got to his shoulders and slipped under his flannel shirt to help take it off of him before he wrapped his other arm around me and started moving me back towards the bed. When we landed on the bed, he settled himself between my legs and stopped to give me a brief smile before he came back to me. 

I could add how his body felt pressed up against mine to the list of things that made me want him. Everywhere he touched me and everywhere his lips went . . . it was like he knew exactly what he needed to do to give me indescribable pleasure. He trailed his lips back up from my neck to my mouth and lingered there before he abruptly broke it off and put his forehead on mine while he caught his breath and said, “I can’t do this.” 

_Doesn’t feel like he can’t do this . . . he’s good to go judging by-_

He exhaled in frustration and cut off what I was thinking. “No, why do you always think that’s what I mean? Not that . . . this . . . you and me . . . you’re you, but you’re not you . . . I can’t . . . doesn’t feel right.” 

_Then why the hell did he start it? …. Pay attention to what he’s feeling, moron. He thought it’s what he wanted, but now he knows he doesn’t. He doesn’t want me, because I’m not the same, and this made him come to that realization._

I didn’t mind if he wanted to take things slow or stop there or whatever, but that’s not what he was saying. “So, you don’t want me anymore?” 

He inhaled and held his breath for a few seconds before he said, “I need to get my head right, cuz it’s not . . . and I can’t let go of the old you . . . it’d be like I was ready to move on if we . . . and I’m not . . . I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to let what we had go.” 

_He didn’t say no . . . Don’t give up that easy._ “I am me . . . we just need to make new memories.” 

He shook his head. “You were right when we met. Being around you is too hard. You look like her, and you almost act like her, but you’re not her. She’s the one I want.” 

_So whatever this is that he’s been fighting to keep me around for is over?_ I felt like I’d had the wind knocked out of me, but still managed to breathe out, “Okay. I’ll sleep on the couch,“ before I climbed out of from under him, grabbed a pillow, and put it on the couch. I stayed there and listened to him breathing, so I’d know when he’d finally passed out, left him enough of the spell ingredients to get home, left him a copy of the spell, and walked out the door. I couldn’t live like this anymore.


	39. Mistakes

Beth had prayed to Castiel to let him know she was ready to help, so he went to go get her and brought her back here. She hadn’t prayed to him in awhile, not like she did when she was returning the tablets to Nova Scotia. He disliked being the one that reduced her to having to bargain with him in order to get the memories he took from her. He’d been overzealous in taking them and knew the error of his ways almost as soon as he’d done it, but he’d had the best of intentions when he did. Her soul was not one he would allow anyone to take pieces from again. She had too far to go in rebuilding it before she would be safe. 

The only way he could convince Crowley to keep her in Hell was to tell Crowley that Beth knew how to get the souls from Purgatory. Beth had been as determined as ever to keep that secret safe even without her memories of Dean, so when Crowley didn’t get any answers from her, Castiel asked her, but she wouldn’t tell him either. If he wanted to keep Crowley on his side and not let her be tortured by Crowley after the mayhem she caused in Hell, Castiel had to give her back to Dean and push forward with his plan to do the unthinkable. 

When he gave Dean the deal, he’d known it would seal his fateful place in the story, which is what he’d needed to have happen, but he still didn’t like having to play the part of someone that betrayed Dean in order for his plan to work. He had to work within the confines of Fate and win the small battle at the end, and this was the only way to do that. 

“I need you to give me my memories back and come with me to get Gabriel . . . Then I’ll go with you and help you get those souls out of Purgatory, but I’m not letting you and Crowley do it on your own. Those are my terms. They’re non-negotiable, Cas.”

He should tell her ‘no’. She had worn away any modicum of goodwill that Crowley may have had towards her with the last stunt she pulled in Hell. She’d started going after the souls of the people in Crowley’s line instead of demons, which meant Crowley lost the power he got from the souls that were more powerful when they were mostly human. The whole reason Crowley had lengthened the time it took humans to turn into demons was to increase his strength, so by her doing what she did, she was weakening Crowley, and Castiel in a way, because he’d been able to power up using those souls too. It’s how he’d been able to heal her when she almost died. 

Despite the risk to her around Crowley, he didn’t want her to be alone, and that’s what she thought she was now. She was coming back to him, because she didn’t have anywhere else to go, and he didn’t understand that. He also didn’t understand why she thought that she wanted to spend what time she had left with somebody important to her if she didn’t have very much of that time left. “Why might getting your memories back from me kill you?” 

Beth looked down and said, “The last couple of weeks, I’ve felt the blocks I have to keep me from remembering the bad things that happened in Heaven slipping. I don’t know if I need the other memories to help prop them up or if the whole thing will collapse when you try to put the memories back where they’re supposed to be. Dean seems to think that if I remember them all at one time, I won’t be able to survive it. You don’t have to worry. I know you and Dean used to be close, so he means something to you . . . If it isn’t a physical injury to me, he should be okay.” He felt his heart sink when he realized that he’d made a mistake much bigger than he’d thought when he took her memories. 

“It will take time. I can’t give them to you all at once if you think it will make your defenses against the other memories collapse. I could give you a some, and then after you remember one or two of the painful memories in Heaven, I could give you a few more . . . It wouldn’t be safe to do it any other way.” 

She gave him a sad smile and said, “We don’t have time –“ 

“Gabriel and Purgatory can wait.” 

Beth shook her head. “I know what the risks are. I want them back now.” _Why is she thinking that she is already dead, so it doesn’t matter if this kills her?_ She glanced over at the swings and said, “Anyway, I already lived through what happened in Heaven once, right? And I have more of my soul than I had when you met me, so we’ll just have to see how I handle it this time . . . We won’t know until we try it.” 

Her body’s physical reaction to those memories could be catastrophic for her precisely because she had more of a soul and felt much stronger emotions than she ever did back when those things happened to her . . . and she was not dead. He did not like that she had begun thinking that. Those who thought in that way did not care what happened to them and became reckless, and she was sad. Much sadder than the last time he saw her.

“Who told you that you’re dead, because –“ 

“I can be secure in myself and other’s perceptions of me alter that because I don’t have any frame of reference to know whether they are right or I am in what I think about how I’m supposed to be . . . I think I’m supposed to be surer of myself than that.” 

_I should’ve kept an eye on her after I sent her away._ “You should not let others define you. You will always be as you were intended to be,” Cas said earnestly. She looked sad again before she took a deep breath and gave him a hug. He remembered when she used to hug him to show gratitude or as a welcome or goodbye. He remembered when she did not hug at all . . . She was drastically different than she had been in Heaven, or even when he met her in that barn after he brought Dean back from Hell. He could track the progression of her growth since she’d been down here through things like hugs and the way she said or did things that were more human and less like him the longer she was on Earth. He supposed he was the same in some ways. There was a time when he would not have given her a hug to make her feel better. 

“Tell me about your time with them,” Castiel said moving to sit on a bench when she stepped away from him. He was stalling. He did not want to give her memories back to her. 

Beth sat next to him and looked down while she said, “I didn’t think I should be with them at first. I wanted to get Gabriel. I thought you got tired of me not telling you how to break open Purgatory, so I thought I was alone, and I thought that it was bad for me to be around Dean . . . I could feel what he was feeling because of our connection, and he felt like he was in despair when he was around me. I thought it would be better if I left, but he came and found me . . . Things got better between us. I actually thought they were pretty good for a while, but then he went to Wisconsin and came back different, and the last time I saw him, he told me I’d been right to want to leave the first night I was with them, because it was too hard to be around me . . . he told me he doesn’t want me. He wants the old me.” 

Castiel would address that later. He wanted to find out how the others treated her, so he asked her, and she said, “My daughter is the only person that never expected me to be a certain way and liked me just fine the way I was. She didn’t know me before . . . maybe that’s why. You’re goddaughter’s name is Rogue. She has my hair, and she’s getting Dean’s green eyes. I have a couple of games I play with her . . . She’s smart and funny. She picked her own name out of a list of names that I presented to her . . . I talk to her and read to her when she’s supposed to be asleep at night. She’s crawling and getting into things. I think you’ll like her when you meet her . . . With everyone else at the camp . . . their interactions weren’t genuine. They acted like they felt pity for me . . . like I’d gone crazy or I was fragile, but I didn’t feel like there was anything wrong with me. I just didn’t know them well enough to interact with them the way they were used to me interacting with them, and they all expected something from me, but I didn’t know what it was. It was overwhelming, so I didn’t talk to them for a while . . . but even when I did try, I didn’t do a good enough job of being me.” 

She may not have remembered that she did certain things with certain people in the past, but that didn’t change who she was. She was the same person he’d always known her to be. She was his friend. He needed to let her know that nothing she did or didn’t do would change that she was his friend, because right now she felt abandoned . . . by people, by Dean, and even by him because of how he’d left her with Dean with no explanation. 

“Rogue? That is a good name . . . I suspect its somewhat true if she is the one that helped select it,” Castiel answered seriously. 

Beth smiled. “I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear that . . . a lot of people don’t like it when they first hear it.” He’d already gotten Rogue her first present and had wanted to give it to her, but it would have to wait a little longer.

“Did you go on any hunts?” She should’ve felt confident in her ability to do that at least. 

She glanced at him with a small smile and said, “Yeah. Dean and I cleared out a vampire nest in Montana, and that went well. Then we went and got Sam and Rogue, and Sam and Dean hunted for the Alpha Changeling in New York, while I stayed with Rogue in the motel . . . the Alpha found the motel, and I had to deal with her and a few of her minions, and I had to tap into my soul to kill the Alpha . . . I wouldn’t have been able to save Rogue any other way, because I was losing before I did that. Then when we got back to South Dakota, Dean and Sam went to Wisconsin to discuss some things with Bobby . . . I don’t why, and I don’t know why that was a bad thing, but Missouri decided to go with them, so she could let them know what Bobby’s intentions were. I don’t know him, but he must’ve done something bad . . . kind of like Sam must’ve done something bad at some point, but I don’t know what . . . and after they came back, Dean was depressed, and Sam is researching things, but stops when I walk in the room . . . I found a spell to go back in time, so we could go get Phoenix ash without asking you to send us back. We want to use it to kill Eve, but I got kicked off the tour in favor of Sam, so I told Dean he had to get back from whatever time point I chose using the spell to prove he could do it without me. I took him to a Led Zeppelin concert in 1973 . . . we went to the bars, and I thought we were having a good time, but the night took a turn . . . and here we are.” 

He’d only asked about whether she had been hunting, but she had talked excessively, like she had ever since he’d known her on Earth. It was one of many things about her that let him know she was still the Beth he knew and had always known . . . and Sam and Dean were keeping things from her. They didn’t want her to know that Sam had released the Croatoan virus. She knew about the Croatoan virus, but didn’t know how it happened or that most of the children they were training to be hunters had been in Sam’s camp in Las Vegas. She didn’t even know that she’d put conditions on Sam’s recovery or what Bobby had done . . . And she had given Dean one of their ‘nights out’ that they used to have, but things had soured for some reason . . . all of that sounded very much like she was trying to be herself and being set up to fail. 

Even when she did something that was very Beth-like, they didn’t let her know that it as something she would do. “When you took Dean to 1973, that is something you would have done for him in the past to get him away from the struggles in his life.” 

She smiled and said, “That’s why I did it this time.” 

He returned the smile and added, “And you talk a lot . . . not as much as you think in your head, but you’ve always talked a lot. I think that it is because you had nobody to talk to for a very long time in Heaven . . . so your excessive talking now is something that you would do . . . And I think it is remarkable that you were able to save your daughter from the Alpha Changeling by doing what you did. It is not easy to access the power of your soul and even harder when you are in the midst of a battle . . . And Bobby was like a part of your family, but he tried to kill you, Adam, and me, because . . . from what what I got from your memories of Kansas when I took them, your soul is marked by your meeting with God. I suspect that is why Dean and Sam went to talk with Bobby to see if they could understand it . . . and you and Dean helped build the camp in Wisconsin together . . . Dean returning to that camp may have brought back memories of what he had with you there, and that is why he has been more depressed since he came back, not because of anything that you have done wrong . . . what happened to make them go to Wisconsin?” 

Beth told him about the problems she’d been having with Sam, and Castiel thought that would have been enough to make them seek out Bobby’s council, but he didn’t know why they wouldn’t let her know that. He told her what Sam had done to make the world the way that it was now and her role in ending Sam’s reign, because he thought she should know something like that. The more he talked with her the more he regretted taking her memories. She had no idea how much good she had done, and that was something she should know. 

Beth didn’t know what to think about what he’d told her about Sam. She looked like she would have to think about it for a while, but she was beginning to get angry that her daughter was left in Sam’s care so often without her being told about it. “Sam is in the process of being reformed. He will not harm your daughter.” 

She watched him to see if he was telling the truth and nodded before she said, “Maybe it’s not all because of that . . . Maybe it’s me feeling like it’s more than a tad unfair that there is no question of whether Sam should hold her or feed her or dress her or train the kids at the South Dakota camp when I am constantly questioned about it by myself and everyone else.” 

“When do your memories of Heaven threaten to break free?” He'd started to get a call he hadn’t expected and decided to ignore for the time being. 

“When I’m asked about small things that I have done in the past and find out that Dean did them with me or taught them to me . . . like when I’m asked if I did a specific hunt with him or when Dean told me that he taught me how to play poker.” And yet telling her about Sam and Bobby did not do the same thing just now. 

Perhaps it was a combination of her frustration at thinking that she should know something that she didn’t, feeling like she was disappointing others, and a weakening of her confidence in her intelligence and abilities that was causing it? He hadn’t felt disappointed in her when he told her about Sam or Bobby. He’d told her the truth, and he hadn’t expected her to think or feel one way or the other on it. That was for her to decide.

The calls to him became more persistent, so he asked, “Did you leave Dean in 1973?” Beth nodded slowly to confirm that she had, but she didn’t need to explain why she did if Dean told her that he didn’t want her. Clearly that hadn’t been true, because Dean hadn’t prayed to Castiel once since Beth had been returned, but he was now, and he appeared to be panicking. “When did you return?” 

Beth took a deep breath and said, “About a week ago. I wanted to get things ready for this jailbreak.” Dean was just coming back now? He must’ve been searching for her in 1973 all this time. 

“You didn’t tell him you were leaving? Did you leave a note?” Beth shook her head. “Were you planning on returning to him?” 

“If I survive this, my memories, and opening Purgatory for your plan . . . yeah, but I don’t really expect to survive all of that.” 

She always left a note for Dean in the past. It was all part of the learning curve for her, so Castiel watched her to see how she dealt it when he said, “You would normally have left a note . . . it’s not your fault that you don’t know that. It’s mine. Wait here. I must go and talk to Dean. Do not go into Heaven on your own. That is also something you would have done, and I can hear you thinking it right now.” 

She smirked at him slightly and said, “Wouldn’t dream of it,” so Castiel paused. 

“Beth, that is something you would have said before to Dean . . . right before you did it, because you wouldn’t dream of it while you slept . . . you are still you. Please do not go on your own.” 

She seemed touched that he said, ‘Please’ instead of ordering her not to go. Glancing at her watch, she replied, “I promise I will not go to Heaven on my own, but I’m giving you 10 minutes, and then I’m finding a way to come and get you, because it’ll mean you’re in trouble, and I won’t stand for that . . . and then we’ll go to Heaven and get Gabriel.” _I”ll be in trouble?_ It was something to keep in mind. Dean was not pleased with him at the moment.


	40. Sunrise

Sam stayed in the shadows and waited for Cas to get in the right position. He wondered if he’d finally find out what happened. He wanted to know why Beth took off after what should have been a good night. All he knew was that she’d taken Dean to a Zeppelin concert, and Dean called a day or two later saying he needed help, so Sam had dropped everything to be by his brother’s side. 

Cas’s eyes scanned the room before he looked at Dean and said, “I thought you said there was no trace of her. Her footprints are over there, and the pizza box in that corner has cheese and mushroom written on the top . . . She was here, and you know that. You don’t need me to get you more ingredients for your spell. Why did you call, Dean? I’m busy.” 

Sam watched his brother let the anxiety he’d been feigning fall away. Dean could turn on the quiet, dark, and menacing at the drop of a hat, and none of it was bravado. Sometimes Dean scared even him. Dean started circling Cas and asked, “Too busy with Crowley to help find Beth after you broke her?” 

Cas wasn’t intimidated. If anything Cas seemed like he was expecting this from Dean. “Beth wasn’t broken when I sent her with you . . . Use your Beth-tracker to find her.” _Is Cas implying that Dean broke Beth?_

Dean didn’t take the bait. “I can’t. She’s blocking me. Something she does all the time now . . . Are you really gonna stand there and tell me you didn’t do anything wrong? That she’s just fine the way she is?” Cas turned and followed Dean’s movements, but he wasn’t moving from his spot out of the ring of holy oil. _This isn’t going to work. Cas is expecting some kind of a double-cross._

“Did she leave a note?” Whatever that meant to them, it made Dean pause for a few seconds. Having gotten the desired affect, Cas added, “Beth is who she’s always been. If she didn’t leave a note, maybe she doesn’t want to be found this time.” Sam could see that what Cas said had hurt Dean for a fraction of a second before Dean tried to hide it. Sam wondered why it’d hurt Dean, and he wondered why Cas would use something personal for no reason. It seemed out of character, but then Cas hadn’t been himself all year.

Rogue started giggling and Sam realized she’d crawled away from him and was heading towards Cas, but Dean gave the signal for Sam to stay where he was. Cas looked down at Rogue, as she settled herself at his feet, and Dean said, “That is your Goddaughter.” Sam wondered if Cas could feel anything like guilt. Most angels didn’t, but Cas wasn’t like most angels. Cas continued to watch at her, and Dean added, “You swore you’d protect her. You haven’t been around.” 

Cas glanced at Dean before he sighed and bent down towards Rogue while he took something out of his pocket. Sam tensed, but Dean was right there and watching Cas’s every move. Cas took an amulet that was attached to a safety pin and fastened it to her shirt before he stood and looked at Dean. “I also swore to give her presents. This will keep her from being found by angels as long as she wears it. She is too young for me to mark her ribs. I must go, Dean . . . you’ll have to find Beth on your own.” 

Dean dropped the anger, took a step towards Cas, looked like he was about to beg and said, “Cas, I need your help . . . Rogue can’t grow up without a Mom,” and with that, Cas moved exactly where he needed to be, and Dean didn’t even wait for Sam to light the match before he did it himself. 

Sam didn’t know what he was doing there in the shadows anymore, so he came out to get Rogue as she crawled towards her Dad and away from the flames that had upset her. Dean’s focus stayed on Cas. “Where you been, Cas?” _Now the real questions can begin._

“Dean, there are things I have to do –“ 

“What you need to do is tell me where Beth is, cuz I know you’re the one that got her out of here.” 

Cas watched Dean and said, “Beth makes her own choices the way she always has. If she’s not here, it’s because she doesn’t want to be.” Cas could have said another angel took her, but he wasn’t, and he kept driving home the fact that Beth was still Beth, and she didn’t want to be here. _What about her daughter? That’s so typical._

Cas looked at Sam and said, “Her daughter is being held by the reason that humanity is almost extinct, and yet you deem Beth a poor mother . . . one that needs to be policed at every turn. If she is really as bad as you and Dean think she is, why do either of you want her back?” Dean wasn’t saying anything, so Cas cocked his head to the side while he appraised Dean and then said, “You don’t. It’s out of a sense of obligation . . . She told you once that she would stay with you until you didn’t want her to stay . . . You told her that you don’t want her, so she left.” 

_That’s the second time I’ve heard that. What the hell is that supposed to mean?_ Dean shook his head and said, “She said that on the day we met . . . She doesn’t remember it. You can’t use that as a reason why she left . . . And if that’s what I said to her, I didn’t mean –“ 

“Yes . . . that is what you told her. Do you think that she has changed so much that she will stay where she’s not wanted? She is not her memory of you. All you had to do was make new memories with her. You could have begun again, and you would have the Beth you seem to think is lost.” Sam found it enlightening to know that Beth had said that to Dean the day they met, and Dean had been the one to insist on her staying with them ever sense. It definitely changed his memories of what it was like back then. He felt like an absolute idiot for all the things he thought back then already, but this added to that.

Dean studied Cas and replied, “You still care a hell of a lot . . . she’s still family to you. The deal to get her memories back, working with Crowley . . . It’s all an act. Why? What are you plannin’, Cas?” How could Dean do that? It was like he could temporarily suspend the feelings of betrayal and anger that he’d had towards Cas over the last 9 months, because he wanted to find a reason, any reason, to explain away why Cas had abandoned him, was doing the wrong thing, and had let him down. Sam knew that side of Dean, because he’d seen it enough himself. 

Cas stepped back away from the flames and said, “What I have to do to succeed where I failed in the future Beth told us about.” 

Dean stepped closer to the flames. “You don’t have to do it alone, Cas . . . Get rid of Crowley. We’ll do it with you if you’re not doing what you did then.” 

Cas looked like he wanted more than anything to let Dean in on it before his posture stiffened, and he shook his head. “I can’t. This is the way it has to be, and I’m not alone in my quest. I have an unknown variable helping . . . one that I trust . . . but if I don’t make it back from this Dean -” 

Cas was cut off as Sam saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned. Beth was there with a fire extinguisher and started putting the ring of holy fire out. Dean grabbed her from behind, but he was too late to stop her from putting out enough of the flames to let Cas out. “What the fuck are you doing, Beth?” 

Beth didn’t put up a fight and relaxed back into Dean as she said, “I don’t want to hurt you, Dean. You have to let me go.” 

It sounded like she was saying something that fit the situation, but based on how Dean reacted, she’d meant something else, or maybe he read what she was thinking, because his expression quickly changed from anger to worry as he said, “If it’s because of me -” 

Beth glanced towards Cas who was approaching them and cut Dean off. “This is for the best. If this is goodbye, take care of Rogue . . . I’ve been told that I should’ve left a note. Sorry, I didn’t.” 

To Sam, that meant Dean was probably right in thinking that what Cas was doing was all an act, because Cas had obviously told her she should’ve left a note, which negated what Cas had said to hurt Dean earlier. Sam missed what happened with Dean after that, because he was faced with a blonde angel he thought looked vaguely familiar. The angel reached for Rogue, while he touched his fingers to Sam’s forehead, and Sam found himself and Dean standing in the middle of an old Western mining town.

There were some gallows. The whole town was here to watch the hanging. Sam was preoccupied with it too until he realized Dean wasn’t beside him anymore. When Sam found him around the corner of the nearest building, Dean had his bag down on the ground and was pulling things out of it. “What’re you doing, Dean?” He knew full well what Dean was doing. He just wanted Dean to stop and think. Dean ignored him until Sam grabbed Dean’s bag to get his attention and asked him again. 

Standing up to get his bag, Dean finally decided to answer him. “Setting up the time spell. I’ve got enough stuff left. We’ve gotta go back.” 

They had a real opportunity here. They shouldn’t waste it. Holding the bag away from Dean, Sam tried to talk some sense into him. “I don’t think we’re in Denver anymore, and that spell will only take us back to the place where we are. It’ll take us days to get back there, and they’re already gone. Rogue is with Beth. She’ll be fine. We might as well make the most of being here now that we’re here.” 

Dean shoved Sam back against the wall and took his bag back. “Rogue’s not with Beth. Rogue is back at Bobby’s . . . There’s no way in hell Beth would take Rogue to Heaven, and that’s where they’re heading . . . and then they’re goin’ after those souls in Purgatory.” Dean paused in rifling through his bag. “Where the hell is it?” 

Sam didn’t know what Beth took, but it must’ve been something Dean needed for the spell to work, because Dean pulled out a piece of paper that confirmed to Sam they were where he thought they were. _’Have fun playing cowboys in Sunrise. Finish it early. A Back to the Future III mail drop isn’t possible anymore. Balthazar will come get you in 24 hours.’_ Well, she left a note. Dean exhaled out, “Fuck,” before he threw his bag on the ground and turned away from Sam in frustration.

Dean needed to get his head in the game. They were in a different century and had a job to do. “They won’t do all that in 24 hours. We have time.” 

Dean shook his head. “You think we’ll find them again when we get back? Cas won’t answer calls . . . Beth’ll still block me.” 

It looked like Dean might need to hear something positive, so Sam said, “Maybe there was a reason she let you know what they were planning.” 

Dean’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah . . . It’s called goodbye, Sam . . . Come on. We need to get a horse. You need to go and find the Colt while I find the monster . . . We’ve got less than 24 hours to get this done.” Dean pulled a magazine out of his jacket pocket and started emptying the silver ammo before walking towards the general store without another word. 

Sam looked at the mule their silver had bought them. “We got ripped off . . . that’s all I’m saying.” 

“Nah . . . he, uh . . . he’s a classic . . . dependable . . . he’ll make sure you get where you’re going,” Dean said while giving the mule a sympathetic pat on the shoulders. 

Sam continued to appraise the mule and muttered, “Yeah, if he doesn’t drop dead before I get there . . . it’s what? 20 miles from here? He’s old . . . and he’s a mule. I thought –“ 

“Nothing wrong with him, Sam . . . mules are supposed to be smarter and live longer than horses . . . It was a good buy. You all right to climb up? I could give you a leg up, or you could maybe use that fence over there. Just don’t let anybody see you.” 

It never ceased to amaze Sam the weird random crap that Dean knew on some things, like mules and Kurt Vonnegut. It might be a little difficult to get up on the mule with his bad legs, but Sam told Dean he’d be fine, and Dean hesitated before he asking, “You know which –“ 

“Yeah, I know which way I’m going, Dean. You’re not the only one with a good sense of direction. Just go find the phoenix.” Dean nodded and headed off around the corner of the store to . . . from the looks of things go into the saloon and start his questioning of the locals there while Sam and his mule headed off at a walk. 

It took 5 hours to get there. The mule didn’t trot or gallop, just a slow and steady pace the whole way, so Sam had 5 hours back if the mule didn’t decide to stop and go to sleep, or die. He still wasn’t sure that wasn’t a possibility. They had time though. He thought them being prepared and knowing what they needed to get done had saved them hours of sleuthing that they could put into coming up with a plan to get the ash in time. 

Samuel Colt was not what he’d been expecting. Never meet legends or heroes. They never live up to the hype. Sam wondered if that’s what their Dad would’ve been like if he’d kept at it for as long as Colt did. He wondered if that’s what he and Dean would be like if they kept at it for that long. They had an earlier start than any other hunters he’d come across, and they were still going, but they had something Colt didn’t have. Even though they both messed up and made mistakes, they had each other. Colt was out there alone building a Devil’s trap to keep the Devil’s Gate sealed off. Being alone wasn’t any kind of way to do this job.


	41. Drowning

Dean watched Sam limp as fast as he could to get to the phoenix ash piled up in the middle of the street. They didn’t have to move that fast. It was more like 11 instead of high noon. They still had to wait around another hour before Balthazar came to get them, which meant Dean hadn’t timed this one right. Knowing what they needed to do before they got here made everything a breeze. 

He’d wanted to draw it out, so he could stay busy and prevent himself from thinking about what was going on with Cas and Beth. He could go to the saloon and drown his thoughts, but whatever the hell it was they had in there wasn’t whiskey. Maybe if he choked down the first couple, the rest would go down easier. It’d get the job done, so Dean headed that way before Sam got to him. “What are you doing, Dean?” That seemed to be Sam’s catch phrase of this hunt. 

Dean paused at the saloon doors and said, “Thought I’d give the whiskey another try. See if it gets any better with age,” before he pushed open the door and went inside. Dean indicated for Elkins to give him two. By the time the shots where set down in front of him, Sam was standing next to him and nagging. 

“Do you really think now’s the best time for this? I thought you wanted to find them, so you could stop them or do what they’re planning with them. This won’t help you do that.” 

Dean made a face and forced himself not to spit out the first drink before he quickly moved onto the next, hoping that the burning sensation from the first one would dull the burning of the second. That actually worked, so he ordered 2 more. _Nothing like chasing gasoline with more gasoline._

“Isn’t this why we’re in this situation now?” Sam asked in exasperation while Dean worked himself up to start in on his third. 

_Sure sounds like it. What the hell did I say or do to make Beth take off? Cas said I told her I didn’t want her anymore. Is that what I did?_ He didn’t know, so he went for the 3rd and immediately followed it with the 4th, so he could numb the icy feelings of panic he felt for having done something that couldn’t be undone and the feelings of self-loathing for whatever it was that couldn’t be remembered. 

Cas was still protecting Beth. He’d probably been protecting Beth from Crowley when he offered Dean that deal for Beth’s memories of him. Crowley probably wanted to go with the violent option to get the intel on Purgatory after what she did with her giant pet dog, and Cas said what he had to say to play up to Dean and Crowley’s expectations that he was the bad guy they both thought he was at the time. 

He should’ve known Cas was planning on sacrificing himself and not just following a guidebook on what not to do, but he’d been too wrapped up in himself to pay attention to Cas, and now it was too late to stop any of it. “I’ve seen that look before . . . that need to calm the nerves. First man you shot, Sheriff?” 

Dean looked up at Elkins and shook his head. “A monster like that? No . . . it’s in the job description . . . I’ll take 2 more.” It was the first time Dean had sympathized with a monster for killing though. If what happened to that Phoenix’s wife happened to Beth, and he could do what that Phoenix did, he would’ve done the same thing. Just sucked they needed that ash to kill Eve. 

Dean took his 5th and 6th shot in quick succession. Looked like he’d been right. Those two didn’t hurt going down at all. “Dean, you can’t shut down. We can still –“ 

Dean cut Sam off by ordering up 2 more and then said, “I’m doin’ the only thing I can do about it. They’re gone, Sam.” Dean went to grab his 7th shot and was prevented from being able to drink it when Sam grabbed him roughly by the front of his shirt to get Dean’s attention. 

“So, this is it? This is what you are now? A barely functioning alcoholic . . . What about your daughter?” Dean’s focus fell onto the half-empty shot glass in his hand after it’d sloshed everywhere. The others in the saloon looked like this was the kind of thing that ended in a shootout, so they started heading for the door. 

Elkins stepped in and said, “You two gonna kill each other? Go outside and do it.” 

Dean finished the shot in his hand and grabbed the other to down it too while he turned away from Sam. “Nah, he’s my brother . . . tried killing me a few times . . . hasn’t managed it yet. Keep ‘em comin’.” 

Dean saying that didn’t have the desired effect, because Sam didn’t leave him alone. “You know what? I’m glad she’s gone. It’s been this way with you for weeks.” 

_Does Sam think I don’t know that? I know that. I know I checked out. I should’ve listened to Bobby and enjoyed the time I had left with her, because she’s as good as dead now._ No afterlife with her either if those memories of Heaven came back to her. They’d destroy what was left of her, and he’d be stuck in Heaven living in endless loops of the same memories of her if he ever wanted to see her again, but that Beth wouldn’t be his Beth. It’d be a poor substitute for the real thing . . . a kind of torture all on its own. 

Apparently, Dean downing four more shots without responding to what Sam had said about him being glad Beth was gone was not the reaction Sam had been hoping for when he said it, because he changed tactics and said, “If you keep this up, you won’t be any good when we find out from Balthazar where that playground they used to get into Heaven is.” That made Dean pause. He still drank the shot in his hand, but he looked at Sam this time after he put the empty glace down and moved his hand to the last shot standing. 

Sam quickly seized his opportunity and said, “Balthazar is Cas’s friend, right? He’s known Cas longer than anyone. He’ll know how they got up there and what their plan is. He’s coming to pick us up in,” Sam paused to look at his watch and said, “30 minutes, so that’s how long we have to come up with a way to make him tell us. And you’re already in no fit state to drive. I would’ve thought you’d want to be the one to make sure we get wherever we need to be as fast as possible if you want to see either of them again, but it’s up to you. You can stay here and keep heading towards being a mess on the floor by the time he gets here, or you can stop, sober up, and help me come up with a plan.“ 

Dean hadn’t thought about using Balthazar as an asset until Sam said it, but he didn’t know Balthazar all that well. Balthazar helped Cas, and he listened to Gabriel when Gabriel told him to keep an eye on the Wisconsin camp. From what Beth said, Balthazar was unreliable and more of a free spirit than Cas . . . but he listened to Gabriel, which meant he respected him. Maybe they could use that. 

Dean inadvertently downed his last shot before he put a silver bullet on the bar to pay for his tab and stood to go with Sam outside, but he didn’t realize until he stood that he couldn’t feel his legs. His brain might be working, but he still ended up on the floor. While Sam helped him get up the best that he could given his own limitations, Dean slurred out, “Just ask . . . can’t trap him. Doesn’t like to . . . be told what to do.” _Sonofabitch!_ It was like being trapped in his body. His mind was workin’ fine, or he thought it was, but he couldn’t even talk. _What the hell did I just put in my body?_ He wondered briefly if he’d go blind. Isn’t that what happened with moonshine . . . the bad stuff. He’d had good moonshine . . . didn’t do that kind of thing to people anymore, but that shit he’d just had was toxic. Maybe his mind was starting to feel it some, cuz he had no idea how he got outside and was sitting on the ground hiding a bottle of the stuff from Sam when Balthazar came to get them . . . he thought they had 30 minutes.

Dean listened while Sam tried to stop Balthazar from leaving them in Denver after he brought them back to the present. Dean would say something, but his tongue was numb. Everything was numb. That’d been the point. He should’ve never had that last drink. He never should’ve had that first drink. It was always the first one. This was starting to be a problem. He didn’t normally have blackouts or time gaps when he was drinking. 

Dean still had no idea what he said to Beth to make her leave. It must’ve been bad if she thought he didn’t want her. Did he really say that? He missed the old her. He missed his friend, the one he could talk to in code . . . The one he planned heists with . . . the one who wanted him no matter how big of a dick he was. He wanted her back, but Cas said the new her was the old her, and he’d been too wrapped up in his own crap to see it. Adam said she was the old her too. Maybe she was . . . when she came to let Cas out of that trap, she looked like the old Beth . . . and the old Beth was reckless, and now he’d lost the old and new Beth. 

Did he make a move on her when they went back in time? He was pretty sure he had, but he didn’t know how it ended up, and he hated that he didn’t. All he knew was that he woke up the next morning in the bathtub without any clothes on. He had no idea how he got there. She wasn’t there, and she’d left him the spell and the stuff he needed to get back. At first he thought she went to get breakfast or something, but when she didn’t come back by that night, he thought she was staying in the past, so he’d looked for her where he thought she might be. 

Nobody at the movie theater or any of the other places he’d checked had seen her. The guy at the 20th pizza place he tried had. She’d ordered enough to keep her going for a while, so Dean had thought maybe she’d come back to the present if she had been stocking up on it. When he came back, he saw the pizza box she’d left behind in the warehouse, but she wasn’t there. He called Sam and asked him to come help him before he started following her tracks. 

She wandered around for a few days. He thought he just missed her a couple of times after he figured out that in between places she stopped to eat, sleep or grab supplies, she was going to check out the places they’d visited in the past, like the movie theater or that diner . . . then he saw where her footprints ended abruptly, and there were a second pair of footprints in the snow next to hers. He’d worried for a few seconds that Raphael took her, but then recognized the tread and size of the shoe, and knew they were Cas’s. Now Dean wished she’d just stayed in the past, because the alternative was what she was doing now, and that . . . 

He didn’t even know what the hell he was thinking about anymore. He was supposed to be focusing on finding a way to get her and Cas back. “Thought you would want Gabriel back . . . whaddya think’ll happen to him if Michael or Raphael finally get their hands on Beth? You think they’ll have any reason to keep him around?” Dean said while he tried to stand. 

“He finally speaks . . . I was beginning to wonder if that was even possible.” 

Balthazar didn’t leave, and it looked like he’d been planning on it before Dean had said that, so Dean decided to sweeten the deal. “The way I heard it . . . You’ve got a thing for those vaults in Heaven . . . You get us up there, and we’ll help you get whatever you want outta them . . . hell, you could clear them out. I don’t care.” 

Balthazar smirked and said, “I can gain access to those vaults any time I want. I don’t need your help for that . . . maybe if you pointed in me in the right direction for some of whatever it is that you’ve had, I might be inclined to assist, but as –“ 

Dean held up the bottle that he’d pilfered from 1861 at some point. Sam looked at him disappointedly, and Dean shrugged. He didn’t know how he got it. He just knew he had it, so he looked at Balthazar and said, “Here . . . you don’t need much to get the job done with this stuff.” 

Balthazar took the bottle and looked at it. “Half a bottle won’t do anything for –“ 

“Packs a punch. It’s like drinking a whole liquor store, and that’s what it takes to get you guys drunk, right?” Balthazar took a drink and made a face before he coughed. Even an angel couldn’t stomach it. 

“There’s a playground where I rendezvoused with Beth before we came to retrieve Castiel. This’ll buy you the location of that,” Balthazar said before he touched his fingers to Sam’s forehead and disappeared. 

Sam quickly grabbed their bags and pushed past Dean. “Come on . . . I know where we have to go.” Dean followed him, and reached for the keys in his coat, but they weren’t there. Sam held them up with a grin, and said, “There’s no way you’re drivin’ until you’re sober . . . sober enough to know when I lift the keys off you. It’ll take us a few days to get there, so you can take the next shift after you sleep it off,” before he climbed up into the driver’s seat. 

Sam drove like an old man. It’d take them forever to get there. Dean couldn’t relax after Sam took off until he realized that Sam was pushing it as fast as the truck could go. Maybe he could let Sam take the wheel for now while he slept it off . . . and dealt with the hangover he was sure was coming. At least they were doing something, and at least he had Sam. He wouldn’t have made it through the last 9 months without him. 


	42. Prison Break

I stopped Cas from getting into the elevator to Heaven. “Cas, you know the deal was for me to get my memories back first. I need to know everything I can about Heaven if we want to make it back out.” He looked a little sad and like he was going to say ‘no,’ so I said, “I left a coded message with Balthazar to let you know where you can find something I wrote on how to access Purgatory if this ends badly for me. Just promise me you’ll get Gabriel out of prison after you get those souls and that you won’t hurt him if the power corrupts you.” 

“It’s too dangerous, Beth. I don’t think –“ 

“Have a little faith in me . . . maybe I’ll surprise you.” That seemed to make him relax and look like he might reconsider, so I added, “And . . . you need to power up.” He looked confused until he understood what I meant, and his expression changed to ‘I’m not doing that.’ “Come on, Cas. Whatever power you were gaining from the souls Crowley gave you got drained when you sent Dean back in time. You’re depowered. You going to Heaven won’t change that. We have another way to do it, and I’m the only one that’s here.” 

When he turned to go to the sandbox without doing either thing I suggested, I grabbed his arm to stop him and said, “We’re a team, and at the moment we’re a weakened team. You need to be at your best to have my back, and I need to be at my best to have yours. I trust you, Cas. I’m giving you permission, and I’m the one that suggested it.” 

“What you’re suggesting could make a normal soul explode . . . I have no way of knowing what it would do to you.” Everyone was always worried about my soul. 

“It’s a strong soul. It’s been through a lot, and maybe the shiny parts are a lot stronger than the average soul . . . maybe that’s why they’re shiny.” 

Cas sighed and looked at the sandbox before he stepped away from it reluctantly. “I am against it, but I will give you your memories back. I will not –“ 

“Cas, we’re planning a jailbreak in Heaven’s prison. You need to do it. Both things. It’s the only way.” 

Cas shook his head and said, “No, Beth. You are my charge. My duty is to protect your soul even above my own life. I will go to Heaven weakened –“ 

_You need to start making amends for things._ “I’m not your only charge though, am I? I suspect Dean is as well. I am telling you to choose him. He will need you when this is all over.”

Cas reluctantly gave me a nod, and sighed before he had me sit on the bench we’d sat on earlier. I didn’t know which was best to do first. “There is no best way to do this. If your memories do not destroy you, me siphoning energy from your soul will.” 

_Way to put a positive spin on it._ “Well, try not to blow me up, and we’ll be half way there.” 

He sighed and said, “I will do my best. This will hurt.” 

I took a few deep breaths and nodded that I was ready before he went to put his hand in my chest and hesitated. “Perhaps you should focus . . . try to hold onto what you have, and keep it together. Visualize it . . . I think we will have to do this together. I’m still unsure the best way to do this with the holes that are still there.” 

_First things first. Shut down emotions. Check. Breathe. Check. Pray . . . Little help on this one, God. I don’t really want to explode. Check. You can do this. You have to do this. Cas needs enough energy that it’s like he’s fully powered Breathe. Focus . . . clear your mind of everything . . . check. Nod to Cas you’re ready._

When he started, I still wasn’t prepared for it and might’ve screamed. It wasn’t too terribly different to what Sam did to me in that bathtub except instead of feeling like I was an aluminum can that was being crushed, I felt like I was threatening to break apart from the inside out, but it wasn’t my body that hurt. It was focused internally. 

I tried to keep all the pieces that felt like molten lava together even though it hurt my very essence do it. It’s what I had to do if I wanted to survive . . . every time I felt like I was losing a part of me, I held onto it and pulled it back towards me. I felt like I was in a firey tug of war with Cas. When it was over, I was left breathing rapidly and opened my eyes. 

Cas looked perplexed and said, “That should not have worked . . . and you gave me much more than I needed. How did you give me so much?” 

I didn’t know what he was talking about, so I didn’t even try to answer him. “You gave me my memories back first? That’s why I could compare it to something Sam did?” 

He nodded before looking at his hand and then at where I assume my soul is while he said, “I thought you would need them, so you would have a reason to want to survive . . . I –“ 

He cut himself off and pulled me to my feet, so he could give me a hug. _What the hell? Why is he hugging me?_

“And the memories of your torture in Heaven?” 

_Why’s he being so emotional?_ “I, uh . . . I have them all . . . but, I’m holding off on feeling anything about them until we’re done . . . Apparently, I have one last self-defense mechanism in my arsenal . . . my emotions are pretty shut down . . . not shut down as much as when I access my soul . . . maybe hunter mode.” _Probably why hugging me isn’t a great idea right now. You don’t hug on hunts. You focus._

He still wouldn’t let me go, so I asked him if he was okay. _What the hell did I do to him?_ “It is overwhelming. This is what humans do when they are grateful for something, correct?” 

“Yeah, it is, Cas. Why are you grateful?” 

“You have given me some of your soul.” 

_What the fuck?_ “Maybe you touched the part that is marked by my meeting with God?” 

Cas shook his head and said, “No . . . you gave me one of the parts you’ve regrown.” 

_How would I . . . oh no._ “We should get going.” 

Cas held me a little tighter to stop me and said, “Why did you think ‘oh no’?” 

_Shit._ “Uh, I might’ve . . . well see I prayed for a little help in not exploding, and after that I was trying to focus, and was thinking I had to hold myself together, so you could get enough energy that it’s like you were fully powered . . . Maybe God eavesdropped on my extra thoughts and gave you a battery to keep you charged for however long it lasts . . . did I hurt you?” 

Cas shook his head and said, “No . . . God did this? That has to mean something.” 

_Does it?_

“Yes it does . . . I am sorry that it was taken from you . . . I will not let it go to waste. I will cherish it.” 

_Don’t worry about it, Cas._ “You’re family. I want to help you survive any way I can, and now I guess I have . . . Come on. We have to get Gabriel before my emotional side starts to take back over . . . If I’m going to go mad, I want to be back down here when it happens, and we need to make a stop in Kansas before we go . . . sorry for the frequent flyer miles, but there’s something there we need to pick up now that I can remember it.” I hated to cut it short, because he seemed really affected by it, but I didn’t deserve a hug. I didn’t do anything, and we had things to do.

Cas examined his new blade after we got back to the playground. We were lucky we had this way into Heaven. “The penalty for having this –“ 

_He deserves it more than any of its previous owners._ “I gave it to Gabriel, and he gave it back to me to hold onto, and now I’m giving it to you. Cut out me out of the equation, and it is like Gabriel gave it to you. He has the power to do that, so no penalties . . . I know the weight and balance are different. Think you’ll be able to use it?” 

Cas gave me a look that said he wasn’t sure about my reasoning before he looked at the blade again and tried it out a bit more. “It will suffice. Stay close.” He brought me through the portal, and we were in an elevator. I wondered if we’d even need the Purgatory souls if we got rid of Raphael now. “We have one objective, Beth, and that is to find Gabriel. Once we have him, we’re getting out of Heaven. Leave Raphael to me.” The doors opened, and we found ourselves standing in a place that was so painfully familiar I had to turn the dial down even more on my emotional switch. Now wasn’t the time to fall apart. 

Between Cas’s pathways and his being able to sense when other angels were around the next corner and the back corridors and places to hide that I knew, we made it a good way into Heaven before we came across another angel. When we did, it required a bit of fast thinking, because we were in the middle of a corridor, and there was nowhere for us to go. 

_Cas, grab my arm and act like you’re escorting me. You can’t hide my soul. They know who I am, but they don’t know what side you’re on, because you’ve been playing your own side for so long. Wait until they pass, and then we’ll deal with it. We can’t let them tell anyone they saw us up here._

Cas did what I said and essentially told them that he was tired of fighting a losing battle and therefore bringing me to Michael. Me knowing Enochian helped me know what was going on right up until it didn’t. Cas wasn’t expecting it either, as one of the angels quickly dropped his blade and didn’t go for Cas, but the angel he’d been walking with down the hall. 

Cas pulled me behind him as the light from the now dead angel burst out of it and the angel with the blade turned to face him, so I grabbed my angel blade from its sheath and spun around Cas to stab that angel in the side, because . . . well, take your chances when you have them, and he wasn’t paying attention to me with all his focus on Cas. 

I had to block my eyes from the second angel’s dying angel’s grace, and after it died down, Cas looked down at me. “Things up here are worse than I thought. I should not have brought you.” 

_You didn’t really have a choice. The only option I left you was bring me, or I’m coming on my own. At least now we know which one’s are Raphael’s._

Cas looked behind him at the angel wings burnt into the ground. “My brother’s and sister’s that turn on the one next to them follow Raphael . . . Those following Michael would follow his rules and not initiate an engagement without his command to do so?” I nodded, so Cas said, “I still should not have brought you.” 

_Then how would you get to Gabriel? I have a way that we can go . . . you might be a little big to fit through it, but if you can, then we’ll be in the prison in no time._

Cas looked down at the tunnel, hidden under a book stack in one of my libraries. “A little big?” 

“Well, I dug it for me . . . You’ll fit, since you’re in your vessel, but it might be a bit uncomfortable.” 

Cas knelt down and examined it in confusion. “How did you tunnel under the walls of Heaven?” 

I crouched down next to him and said, “I had a lot of time on my hands . . . matter is matter. Even in Heaven the rules of physics have to be followed.” 

Cas stopped me from heading inside. “How do you know what will be awaiting us on the other end? I should go first.” 

I looked at the hole. “Unless they’ve put an angel in my old cell, nothing should be on the other end.” 

Cas looked around the library and asked, “This is nowhere near the prison. How did you know your tunnel would come out here?” 

_Stop stalling Cas._

“I am not stalling. I have no idea how you did this.” 

I sighed and said, “When I was in my cell, I worked at it from that end. When I got out using the front door of my cell, I worked on it from here. I had to know everything about the path between . . . I broke into offices and measured their length and the angles I needed with a piece of string and a peg from one of the tables. I’d take the dimensions back to my tunnel and after I’d dug that far, I knew I was under the next office or hallway, and I’d do the same thing with those. I kept doing it until the two ends met.” 

Cas tilted his head to the side while he appraised the tunnel and asked me how long it took to make it, but I wasn’t really sure of exact dates. “I started it after the first jailbreak I was responsible for up here and finished it when I was almost 18, so almost 6 years. I needed somewhere safe to hide and heal in my cell. A lot of times, they thought I was gone, but I was really just on the other side of the wall until I got well enough again to get out the front door. One day I just kept going, and it turned into a tunnel.” 

He went from looking in the tunnel to looking up at me small smile that said he was impressed before he looked confused and said, “How did you ever get caught again once this was built?” 

“It felt safe in this library, but at the same time it started to feel like an extension of my cell, so I left to go to other libraries or find other things to do . . . you ready?” He gave me a nod, and I went first. Once I got a good way in, I stopped to look back and make sure he fit. I had to belly crawl, and it looked like he had to worm crawl by putting his arms ahead of him and then pull himself forward until his arms were under him, because there wasn’t room for his arms to be by his sides. It’s a good thing angels aren’t claustrophobic. 

I paused when we were nearly to my old cell and said, “Cas, when you get in here. Try to remember that I’m okay now.” I looked back at him with the light from my Zippo, and he nodded. I think he would’ve nodded at anything to get me moving again. He may not be claustrophobic, but he was done with that tunnel. 

I flipped my Zippo closed, pushed the bricks in front of me out, and slithered my way out through the hole before I stood to wait for him to join me. I couldn’t see the walls. I didn’t want to see them. It’s why I’d put my Zippo away. Cas on the other hand could see everything whether there was light in there or not. I felt him brush past me to touch the wall to our left. “Beth . . . “ 

I set about trying to open the lock on the door and answered his unspoken inquiry. _Yes, that’s all mine. To me it looks and feels like blood and tissue . . . I’m assuming it’s really parts of my soul, but I can’t think about it . . . I need to get the hell out of this cell, or at least get this door unlocked._ At my last thought, Cas quickly moved towards the cell door to help me. He couldn’t unlock it the way he did normal doors, because it was warded to keep angels locked up, but just him being there helped me feel better, and I got the door open in no time using my belt. 

Opening the door, Cas had a look outside and then turned back towards me. “Stay here. I’ll get you the keys and deal with the guards while you go get Gabriel. He’s in the last cell on the isolation block.” He waited for me to agree with his plan, so I nodded. It sounded simple enough to me. As soon as I agreed, he opened the door and was gone, and I thought, _’Of course my shiny soul could make for a good distraction if one is needed, and I don’t have to leave this room._

I couldn’t tell who the first guard Cas approached was, because his back was to us, but whoever it was didn’t last long. Cas grabbed him from behind and sunk his angle blade into his chest before the guard knew what was happening. The guard’s grace burst out of him, and I had to hide my eyes. When I looked again, I thought about how effective angels dying was at ruining the element of surprise. But then again . . . Cas looked like he was done hiding as he faced off against the rest of the guards that came into the prison block to confront him. 

None of them knew who he was, only that he didn’t belong there, threats of being reported for disobedience had no effect on him, and Cas was the one that made the first move against them. He caught the one to his left completely by surprise, and it went down as he blocked the angel to his right. Then I had to shut my eyes again. I wondered how much of this fight I’d actually be able to see. The next time I had a chance to look, there were two down, and at least 8 that I could see ready to take their place, but I suspected there were more around the entrance reporting to their superiors and asking for back up. We needed to hurry.

One of the angels raised it’s blade high above the others in an attempt to stab Cas in the shoulder when Cas was preoccupied with another angel, but Cas raised his blade to stops its downward momentum while he dropped Lucifer’s archangel blade from his other sleeve and used that one to kill the angel on his left. I closed my eyes again, and when I looked again, the other angels had taken a step back away from Cas while they looked at the archangel blade in his other hand. Then they all decided to rush him at once. Cas blocked up, to the side, up again with Lucifer’s archangel blade in his left had and twirled his own blade around to kill the angel to his right. _Damnit!_ Exploding grace in close quarters was making me miss out on what was a fantastic effort by Cas. 

The next time I could watch, Cas brought both blades up into an x pattern in front of him to block two of angels that attacked him together. Following the clash, he twirled both blades into a different grip as he brought the blades down and used them to skewer the angels through their sides. Now we were two more down. No wonder he was always complaining about my speed, because he was really freaking fast.

Then one of the angels held him from behind and another was going to stab him in the chest as Cas brought both legs up to kick the third and 4th angels away from him. Having remembered the last time I saw Cas fight against angels and the way it turned out when I did nothing, I made a split second decision to open the door and grab the attention of the 4 remaining angels by shouting in Enochian, “Prison security . . . still as pathetic as ever. I see none of you have gotten any smarter. It’s as easy to break in here as it was to get out.” It was only then that I realized that the angel with the blade was Adriel, and I had to dial down the emotion meter to almost 0.

Cas used my distraction to push back against the angel that held him, so they crashed into a wall, and while the other two went to go help their fellow guard with Cas, Adriel decided to head straight for me. What did I do? I went back into my cell. I wasn’t going to run from him. I was going to confront him, but I needed an enclosed space to do it. I had enough room to maneuver in there, but he didn’t. 

He lowered his head to step through the doorway and said “Ahh, North Star . . . It has been too long. Keeping you alive was always a top priority. It still is, but I don’t have to keep you much alive when I present you to my superiors. I think a promotion may be in the works for me.” 

_Doubtful._

He cocked his head to the side and said, “Being in a meatsuit means that I can hear you now? I look forward to hearing you beg.” 

_I’m only letting you hear what I want you to hear. There will be no promotions for you. You are not intelligent or controlled enough to be a soldier, and you never were. That is why you are a guard._

It had the intended effect, because he rushed to grab me without thinking. Dropping my blade, I barely had time to bring it up into his stomach. He’d been faster than I was expecting, so it’d gone straight through him. I hadn’t had enough time to angle it up to strike him in a vital area, like the heart, and this is where him being an angel worked to his advantage, because he immediately used his power to throw me across the room and into the wall. 

Holding onto my angel blade when he did that, and the fact that he was a hell of a lot slower after being stabbed, were the only two things that worked to my advantage, because I was pretty slow about getting back up myself. When he got to me, he still didn’t think much of me having an angel blade and made the mistake of getting too close again, so while his left hand pinned me up against the wall, and his right hand stabbed his blade down through my left shoulder, I used my right hand to jam my angel blade in under his ribs, wrapped my arms around him and kicked off the wall behind me to knock him backwards. As soon as he landed on his back, I quickly grabbed the hilt of my angel blade and rolled off of him, so I could get far enough away from him to stand. 

_That angel I killed when we trapped Michael was a lot easier than this. They move a lot faster up here . . . Yeah, but you have to know you’re making this last longer for a reason . . . You’re right. I do._

“Where did you get that,” he asked as he rose to face me holding his midsection. He had light leaking out of him in two places now. 

“Castiel made it for me. It’s mine,” I said while I mirrored his movement as he circled to block my exit from the room. 

“Humans are –“ 

“Not supposed to have them? I know. Human’s aren’t supposed to be ripped in half or tortured in Heaven either, but it looks like the rules have changed.” He rushed me again. Jabbing my angel blade through his shoulder as he pushed me into a wall, I only had a couple of seconds to appreciate my small victory before I had to concentrate on holding onto the hilt as he pushed himself off of my blade and then threw me onto the ground. Adriel’s own angel blade made a re-entry into already injured left shoulder, so he could pin me to the floor. His arms were huge, which meant he could twist the blade in my shoulder and still stay just far enough out of my reach that I couldn’t stab him in the stomach again. 

_Time for a change of plans._ “Three wounds like that. It doesn’t look good for you, Adriel.” I clasped my angel blade tightly in my right hand and rapidly plunged it into his foot. It wouldn’t kill him, but it’d hurt like a bitch, and that was the intent. “You’re going to die, and it’s going to be a slow death,” I added before I pulled the blade out of his foot and sliced it across his left knee. Again. I knew it wouldn’t kill him, but it was all I could reach. “You should limp away while you still can. You can explain how it was a human bested you when you seek medical counsel . . . What will the other angels think?” I stabbed through his left knee, and that’s what made him step back to get away from me and take his angel blade with him. 

“I think I preferred it when you didn’t speak. I may not survive, and if I won’t, there is no reason for me to let you –“ 

He was abruptly cut off and flung back into the wall behind him before either of us could make another move. Cas. What an angel. He was beaten and bloody, but he was there. 

He quickly disarmed Adriel and shoved him against the wall before he hobbled Adriel further by stabbing him in the upper thigh and stepped back, so Adriel would fall to the floor. Cas helped me to my feet and said, “You’ve toyed with him enough, Beth. We’ll leave him here.” 

_We’ll lock him in here, so he can’t get out and go to an angel medic?_ Cas gave me a tired nod, like that’s what he’d been planning. _I mostly wanted him to have enough time before he died for it to sink in that I finally beat him, so that works. Thanks, Cas._ When we got out of the cell, Adriel shouted for Cas to show him mercy. He didn’t want to die alone. He didn’t want to die slowly. Cas turned and tossed Adriel’s angel blade back in to him. The intent was clear. If Adriel wanted to die, he could do it himself. Then Cas closed the door, handed me the keys, and let me be the one to lock him inside. 

“We must go,” Cas said hurrying me along towards Gabriel’s cell. _Yeah, reinforcements are definitely on their way._

When we finally got to Gabriel, we got the kind of reception, I’d expected. He was not happy to see me, but at least he looked like he was in pretty good physical condition. _Raphael would’ve had worse done to him. He must be here on Michael’s orders . . . probably to lay a trap for me._

“A trap. Exactly. I thought I taught you better than this,” Gabriel said while Cas and I released him from his chains. 

“You taught me not to get caught.” 

Gabriel looked at my shoulder and said, “And look at how well you learned it. I should’ve been stricter with you.” 

“Yeah, well . . . you taught me to stand up to bullies too.” Gabriel didn’t get to respond, because Cas distracted him by handing him Lucifer’s archangel blade and went to the door to check our exit. When Gabriel and I followed him to have a look, and I saw how we were being blocked off, I started to say, “We just need to make it back to my cell . . . you two can keep them from getting inside, while I crawl out through my tunnel and –“ 

Gabriel cut me off. “Use my horn to call the reinforcements somewhere else? Nice try, kiddo, but –“ 

I anticipated him saying that we didn’t have what we needed and pulled out a leather pouch from my inside jacket pocket while I said, “I planned for this. I had time.” 

Cas, ever the pessimist, said we wouldn’t make it to my cell now. _Sure we will. We’ve got the keys and a lot of prison cells between here and there. You should’ve seen the chaos that happened during the last jailbreak I instigated up here._

Cas looked at Gabriel for direction, and Gabriel said, “Divide the keys up . . . we’ll get more cells open if we each have the keys to do it,” so Cas took the keys from me, snapped the iron ring they were on with his bare hands, gave half of the keys to Gabriel, and kept all but one for himself. 

Cas handed me the last key and said, “We will create the distraction. You will focus on getting back to your cell. That is your target . . . just like with the Devil’s Gates.” I took my key and readied my angel blade. Getting past demons was a hell of a lot easier than getting past angels. 

“Guess we’ll see how your training on that worked out,” I said to Gabriel just before he stopped me from going out the door by putting his hand to my shoulder, so he could heal me. 

When he was done he left his hand on my shoulder while he glanced at me and then looked at Cas. “What have you two been doing?” 

_Coming to rescue you?_

Gabriel ignored my thought and squinted marginally at Cas before he said, “Why do you have part of her soul,” before he turned to look at me and said, “And why do you have cracks in your memory, like it’s been pieced back together with duct tape?” 

_Uh . . . we’ll talk about it later?_

Cas quickly said, “I am in agreement with Beth. We should go,” before he bolted out the door on his way to the first cell. 

_Go easy on him. I told him to give my memories back all at once, and the soul thing is God’s fault._

“God’s fault? Well, then I’m going to have a word with Him too when I find Him again. And why did Castiel have your memories in the first place?” 

_Uhh . . . it’s a long story? Not really the time to tell it._

His lips pursed in anger before he said, “Get back to your cell. Don’t wait for Castiel or me. Try to lure them away with my horn if you can. Come back when you’re done, and we’ll leave here together. And then you’re not leaving my sight for a while. We’re not done talking about this.” 

I felt like I’d been scolded and was going to disagree, but he shut me up by stepping out into the hall and pointing towards my cell, like he was sending me to my room. _Fine . . . see if you can get Gadreel to come with us. He’ll be loyal to whoever gets him out and makes sure he stays out . . . we’ll just keep him away from Metatron._

“Metatron? I thought I gave you some pretty good reasons not to trust that angel. Watching him kill Dean and kick the angels out of Heaven wasn’t enough for you? I’m gone for a few months, and –“ 

“It’s been a very trying year.” 

Following Cas’s lead, I headed out into the hallway to make a mad dash towards my cell, ducking and diving and tumbling between angel combatants and prisoners that were running to get free. I had to stab a few low-level soldier reinforcements to get away from them, but I didn’t stop to see if they died or not. I didn’t have time. I was like a very recognizable big glowing ball of light zipping through a sea of angels. I couldn’t stop, or I’d be taken, and that was the last thing I wanted to have happen now that we were so close. 

When I got to my cell, I quickly sliced my palm and made an angel banishing sigil on the door before I slammed my hand over it, and banished about 20 angels standing nearby. I had a quick look down the hall to make sure Cas and Gabriel hadn’t been taken by the sigil, and I saw Cas fighting with a couple of angels before a prisoner angel tackled one of the soldiers allowing Cas to kill the other. Gabriel was fighting a handful of angels as well. He killed one and took its blade to toss to a prisoner across the hall from him. It looked like he took me up on the Gadreel suggestion. They were okay for now, but they wouldn’t be for long if I didn’t put a move on it. 

When I got inside my cell, I forgot about Adriel until I felt a sharp pain in my right calf as I ran towards my tunnel and ended up on the ground. _That asshole just had to get one more jab in before he dies._ He was trying to conceal where his grace was leaking out, but if I looked, I could still see it. He was still sprawled out on the ground, so I got to my knees, twirled my angel blade, and raised it above my head, so I could shove it down into his chest using both hands. 

“I just don’t have any more time to waste on you, Adriel.” I closed my eyes as his grace exploded out of him and exhaled briefly before trying to get any feelings I had on his death under control. Now wasn’t the time to feel anything if I wanted to handle the memories of the things he did to me for as long as I could. Now was the time to get in that tunnel and find a way to stop reinforcements from converging on Cas and Gabriel. I had to keep moving and not stop for anything.


	43. Powder Keg

Sam heard Dean say, “I thought he told you how to get it open,” for what felt like the 100th time. 

“He did . . . I’m trying to remember the Enochian symbols that spell it . . . I didn’t exactly have much of a chance to learn them before we left Kansas,” Sam replied wishing Dean would just back off and let him think. 

“Well, hurry up, Sam. Doesn’t matter if you get it wrong . . . start putting something down in the sand,” Dean responded before turning away from him and looking up to the sky in frustration. 

“How do we even know they’re still up there? It’s been days,” Sam said still stalling, while he made a squiggly mark he thought might’ve been a ‘E’ in the sand with the stick he had. This never used to happen when he had a laptop. He would’ve had the Enochian alphabet pulled up, and they’d be done with this Heaven fiasco already. 

“Fancy meeting you here,” a British accent said before it added, “Don’t tell me you managed to get stalled by a 7 letter word.” _Balthazar._ That guy was smug and annoying. 

“We’ve been here for hours,” Dean said in annoyance before he turned to look at Balthazar. “Think you could let us in?” 

Balthazar walked over to look at what Sam had so far and tutted at him, before saying, “Not even close,” so Sam started marking it out, while Balthazar looked over at Dean. “What’s in it for me?” 

_Couldn’t just be because it’s the right thing to do, could it?_

“Thinks the man who was trying to destroy all of creation for his own selfish reasons,” Balthazar responded. 

_That’s how I know him. He was in the Luxor._

Dean was waiting to find out what Balthazar wanted while Sam tried again. If he cracked this, they wouldn’t need the angel’s help. Balthazar dismissed Sam’s second attempt before he looked at Dean and said, “It looks like I need to get into the vaults after all. I’ll let you in. You help me do that, and we’re even. You can do what you want after that.” 

Dean didn’t even hesitate before he said, “Done,” and Sam looked at Dean with disapproval. When did making a deal with anything ever work out for them? Never. That’s when. 

Dean shrugged and looked at Sam’s feeble attempts in the sandbox in response. Balthazar took the stick from Sam and made a much more complex drawing than a 7 letter word would have entailed, and Sam looked at Dean, like ‘See. It was a set up. He made us drive here when he knew the entire time he wanted us to help him get in those vaults.’ Dean tilted his head from side to side in a ‘You’re probably right, but at least we’re getting up there,’ kind of way. 

Heaven was . . . sterile and felt uncomfortably open. Everything was bright unless you went down the right corridors that were oddly very dark. They followed Balthazar through a maze of corridors that all looked identical. When they had to pass from one darkened corridor to another through a bright hallway, Sam felt like they were really exposed and would be spotted at any second. He had no idea how they were going to get out of here. 

They were hoping that Balthazar would be generous enough to take them to where Cas was, but he’d probably just take off as soon as he got what he wanted out of the vaults. They’d be left stuck here on their own trying to find a way out and may never find Cas, Beth, or Gabriel. In fact, Sam was pretty sure that’s what was going to happen. “You know we’re his diversion to get in those vaults, right?” 

Dean nodded before he did something Sam hadn’t noticed until then. Dean had cut one of his fingers and was allowing a drop of blood to fall every so often. They’d be able to get out of here if they followed that trail. By the time they stopped, he wondered how much blood Dean must’ve lost, because it felt like it took them days to get wherever that was. 

“You two stay here. I need to see what I have to deal with . . . security is greater these days given Michael’s distrust of Raphael,” Balthazar said quietly before he moved around a corner to the right. 

“You know he’s either telling the guards we’re here or expecting us to follow, so he can lead us right to them, right?” 

Dean bit his bottom lip in thought before he said, “Yeah, that’s why we’re not doing either,” before he took off to the left, and Sam followed. 

“Where –“ Dean put his finger up to his lips to silence Sam before pushing Sam back against the wall protectively with his arm. Seconds later, an angel came around the corner and started walking the other way. Dean went to lead the way around the corner after the angel had passed, but the angel must’ve heard him, because it turned, picked Dean up, and slammed him into a wall. 

Sam picked up the angel blade Dean had dropped, stabbed the angel in the back, and immediately turned his face to look in another direction. He remembered the amount of light that was given off when Lucifer died. This was nothing like that. Just went to show how powerful Lucifer was. Apparently Dean was still unhappy with the amount of light it did give off, because he quickly said, “We can’t kill anymore,” before he went back to leading them through a series of corridors until they ended up coming out on one side of a massive hall the size of a skyscraper. The ceiling was so high, Sam wasn’t even sure he could see it. He looked acrossed the hall from them and Balthazar was at the other entrance . . . maybe a half mile away. The angel looked somewhat surprised to see them. Sam knew the feeling. He was surprised to see Balthazar. He wasn’t even gonna ask how Dean got them here.

Sam went back to taking in the size of the room. “Are the vaults in here?” 

Dean shrugged while he watched Balthazar and said, “I don’t know. Have to see what he does. We aren’t leaving empty handed anyway.” Sam had figured as much on the long trek here. Dean had been too eager to offer Balthazar help in getting into the vaults when they were in Denver and too fast to accept Balthazar’s help in getting up here. Dean wanted what was in those vaults as much almost as much as he wanted to find Cas and Beth. Whatever was in those vaults was probably what Dean planned on using to get them all back out of here. 

Finally Sam thought he saw something. “There . . . third, fourth, and fifths stories . . . entire back wall. Does that look like a bank vault to you?” 

Dean looked where Sam indicated and said, “Biggest one I’ve ever seen, but yeah . . . how do we get to it?” Sam wasn’t sure. There weren’t any stairs around here that he could see leading up to it. If they could get to the second story, there were ladders going from there to the third floor, but the angels standing guard around the vault, and the ones down here standing guard in the brightly lit hall on the first and second floors were going to be a problem. 

As bad luck would have it, at that moment, a noise started blaring that seemed to shake the whole of Heaven. Dean and Sam covered their ears and took cover next to a support pillar as parts of the ceiling started to come down around them. Sound was shooting through him, and if it continued much longer, he was sure his insides would be liquefied. It seemed like the hall trapped whatever the hell that noise was and amplified it. A quick look at Dean revealed blood was dripping down his nose. They couldn’t stay here. 

Sam glanced at Balthazar, and he was making a play for the vaults. Sam nudged Dean and indicated for him to follow Balthazar. Dean nodded that he was ready to move and took off at a run across the back wall of the hall, and Sam struggled to keep up. He wasn’t keeping up. He was going to fail himself on the running test. As soon as the sound died down, he dropped his hands from their ears. He couldn’t really hear anything, so he looked down at his hands. Yeah, his ears were bleeding. When he got to Dean, it looked like Dean’s were too. They had to be able to hear up here. They didn’t have the same kind of advantages the angels had . . . strength, sight, and knowledge of their surroundings. Without being able to hear, he and Dean were screwed. 

They went past some side hallways, and Dean veered off to the right, so Sam followed, and they finally found a staircase, or he guessed that’s what it was supposed to be. Sam still struggled on stairs, and these were not normal stairs. These were stairs for giants. How the hell were they going to get up them? 

Dean reached into his bag, pulled out a pair of those gecko gloves he was always talking, and put them on before he looked up the face of the first step. Placing his hands high above his head, Dean then pulled his body up, struggled to put one of his hands higher by pushing down against the wall with his feet, made it, and then did it again. Slowly, but surely, Dean scaled all the way up the side of the stair. When Dean got to the top, he threw a rope down over the side for Sam to use. _This is going to take forever, and we don’t have forever. I can’t climb up a rope with my shoulder._ Dean gave Sam an impatient look and pantomimed that he wanted Sam to tie it around his waist, so he could pull him up. 

Sam was halfway up the stair when Heaven started shaking again. At least he didn’t have to hear it this time, and it didn’t feel like his insides were turning to jelly, so maybe anywhere that wasn’t the hall was the best place to be? What were they supposed to do about that vault? They were never going to be able to get to it past security and crack it in the time it took to get in there if this kept up. Maybe Balthazar had some kind of plan. Sam wanted to know where the hell that angel had gone. If he wanted in the damn vaults so bad, the least he could do was help them get to them. 

Sam lost count of how many Heaven quaking rounds it was before they were on the first story. How big were angels really, because when he looked at the angels standing guard with their backs to the staircase, they looked human size, but it felt like they were a lot bigger. It was like some kind of weird optical illusion that he didn’t like, so he decided not to look at them for long and quickly followed Dean to the next flight of stairs. 

They were half way up them, when the loud bellowing sound started again, and the stairs and walls began to quake the way they had all the way up here. This time he was standing near the ledge he’d just climbed over and nearly toppled over backwards. The only reason he didn’t was because Dean caught ahold of him and stopped him from falling. Dean looked back down the stairs and then up towards how many more they had to climb and checked to make sure Sam was okay to continue, so Sam nodded. What else could he do? They had to keep moving if they wanted to get out of here. 

When they got to the second story of the hall, they watched as more chunks of the ceiling came crashing down and landed in large pieces on the floor below. The angels on the ground floor weren’t fazed by anything that was going on. They weren’t running or trying to hide. Instead, they looked like they were arming up . . . some of them looked like they were fighting each other. They could wipe each other out as far as Sam was concerned. 

Dean stayed to watch the angels fighting a little longer, so Sam stayed with him. Some of them that won their battles turned to face others, but others were killing their opponents and trying to leave the room unless a new opponent engaged them. They weren’t retreating out of fear. Half of the ones trying to leave were heading for the main entrance, like they had somewhere else to be, and half of them were flying towards the vault to guard it. The ones leaving worked for . . . Michael? They were either leaving to go to their commander in chief or protecting the strongest weapons up here? So that meant that the ones trying to kill them worked for Raphael. 

They couldn’t afford run into the angels working for Michael anymore than they could the ones working for Raphael. He doubted that the angels that worked for Michael were any better than Zachariah had been. _Oh crap._

Sam grabbed Dean’s arm and started heading back towards the stairs they’d just come up. When Dean pulled back on him in confusion, Sam tried to pantomime his concerns, and Dean got frustrated and turned to start heading towards the third flight of stairs, so he could get to the vault before the guard detail on the vaults got too much heavier. Sam stopped him and tried again. He pointed at his own chest and mimed a sniper rifle before he made like he’d been shot in the eye and drew his finger across his neck in the signal for killed. Then he pointed at Dean and shook his head while he did the same signal for killed. 

Dean rolled his eyes when he finally got it. Sam pointed at Dean and down. He wanted to get Dean out of Heaven now. Lucifer had been killed. Sam being a vessel for him wasn’t a problem anymore, but Dean was still Michael’s vessel. The last place Dean needed to be was in Heaven in the middle of an angelic civil war where Michael would want his intended vessel, so he could be at his strongest. Dean was going to tell him ‘no’. Sam could see it until something occurred to Dean, and Dean pointed at himself and put up 3 fingers. There were 3 vessels, and all three were in Heaven now. Michael could have his pick and didn’t even know Dean was up here. 

Dean quickly bypassed Sam on his way to the stairs leading back down to the main floor before he paused to look back at Sam and pointed to the vaults. _He wants me to hit the vaults?_ Sam went to shake his head, so Dean raised his eyebrows and pointed down at the angels fighting in the main hall and then at the vaults again. If they wanted to have a chance of getting out of here in all of the fighting, they needed those weapons. 

_How will I fight my way to the vaults the way I am now? I can’t even get up the stairs by myself._ Dean grinned when Sam finally got it before he gave him a clap on the shoulder as he passed him on the way to the third flight of stairs and indicated for Sam to head down. Dean offered Sam his angel blade, and Sam shook his head. 

Dean needed it if he was heading towards the vault. Sam wouldn’t need it on the human side of Heaven. He could get his Dad to bring him back here to find Dean if Dean took too long. Dean suspected what Sam was thinking and gave him their signals for ‘Stay put. I’ll find you.’ Sam went to shake his head, and Dean raised his hand in an, ‘I swear’ gesture. Whether or not Dean actually believed he’d survive long enough to do that, he knew it was what Sam needed to hear before he’d go somewhere safer. Sam knew Dean needed to know he, their Dad and Adam were safe or Dean couldn’t do what he needed to do to come back, so Sam nodded reluctantly, and Dean tossed Sam the rope before he turned to leave again.

It had seemed like a simple plan: Go find his Dad and Adam and keep them away from the angels. Unfortunately, Sam didn’t know how to get to the human side of Heaven. He felt like he’d been wandering around the same halls for weeks. He’d followed Dean’s blood trail at first, but that just led him back to the elevator. When he tried the elevator, it opened on Earth, not another level in Heaven, so he went back up. Somehow he ended up wandering deeper and deeper into parts of Heaven that didn’t really look like Heaven. They were darker and almost forgotten. He really wished he could hear, because he’d had a few narrow misses with random angels. Stumbling around the halls every so often when the floor shook was the only thing that let him know that the bellowing noise was still happening. 

One turn led to the next, and then he saw something he hadn’t intended on seeing. It was Beth crossing the other side of the corridor going somewhere else, like she was on a mission. He’d nearly forgotten that she was up here. He shouted her name the second he saw her, or he thought he did. He couldn’t hear. He wondered if she could hear. It looked like she could, because she turned, and it looked like she said . . . “Fuck” if he had to guess. It was something she would say, so that’s what he was going with. 

As he moved towards her through the interconnecting hallway, she looked behind her in the direction she’d just come from and glanced back at him before she came jogging up to him. When she got to him, she tried talking to him, and he had to tell her he couldn’t hear what she was saying. She looked up at his ears sheepishly, and it looked like she said she was, “Sorry.” 

He smiled and said. “Not your fault. It’s that horn that keeps blasting.” She bit her bottom lip before she placed a hand on her chest. “That’s you?” She took a deep breath and nodded before she looked behind her again and quickly grabbed his hand to lead him through a winding labyrinth of passages until they ended up in a library. Once they got in there, she dropped his hand and grabbed a pencil out of her weapons bag, so she could write out why she was responsible for him not being able to hear. 

_’Gabriel’s horn.’_

“You have Gabriel’s horn?” 

She wrote, _‘It’s a spell . . . it calls angels to it. I needed to keep reinforcements from going to the prison.’_

“You know that horn is starting the war, right? The angels are fighting each other?” 

She made a face, like ‘maybe’ and wrote, _‘As long as they stay away from the prison and we can slip away unnoticed, I don’t care.’_

“Why can you hear?” She looked at him, like it was obvious and held up the spell bag again. She was casting the spell, so she was immune from it? 

She nodded when he got it before she wrote, _‘It’s only this loud in Heaven. Only angels would hear it on Earth.’_

That’s roughly when he noticed a footprint of blood she left behind when she moved her foot. “Why are you bleeding?” She gave him a look, like, ‘Come on’ and put her fingers in a ring above her head. “You’ve been fighting angels?” She nodded and then pantomimed running in place. “It slows you down on your running?” 

She sighed and shook her head before she wrote, _“We need to get going. You’re clearly lost. What were you supposed to do while Dean is doing something else? I’ll take you where you need to be.”_

“Can you be healed?” She nodded and showed him her shoulder that was fine under layers of blood soaked clothes. “Gabriel?” She nodded. “He’s out?” 

She wrote, _“That’s why I have to get going. I’m supposed to rendezvous with him at the prison after I lead the reinforcements away.”_

Sam thought he’d chance it, since she didn’t remember anything about it. “Think you could get him to heal my ears along with these old injuries? I have to be at my best up here.” 

Beth looked annoyed and said something that looked like, ‘nice try,’ while she wrote, _“You can have two things healed. One for the way you went to Wisconsin to talk with Bobby to fix a problem before it started, and the other for the way you stayed with me after we put the tablets back. You can have your ears healed if you tell me what you were really supposed to do.”_

Sam watched her and grinned before he started to say something, and Beth wrote, _“Yeah, I’m all me.”_

Sam never thought he’d be as glad to see the old Beth as he was now and gave her a hug. Things would be better now if they could all get out of here alive. When she stepped back, he told her what the problem was. “We thought if the war is about to start . . . Michael might be looking to get one of his vessels, and all three of them are up here. I was supposed to go fill Dad and Adam in on it and find somewhere to hide them.” 

Beth looked like she hadn’t thought of that before she scribbled, _‘Where’s Dean?’_

“He’s trying to get into the vaults. Balthazar led us to the one in some big hall and –“ 

Beth quickly grabbed Sam’s hand and started pulling him with her while she went back into the maze of corridors. She could’ve at least pretended it wasn’t that bad. 

His annoyance with Beth’s bedside manner in an effort to dampen his worry for Dean ended abruptly when Beth pushed him back against the wall behind her in a protective move Sam associated with Dean just before two angels went running by the hall they’d been about to enter. Then her shoulders slumped before she gave him a signal to cup his hands over his ears seconds before the walls started trembling again. _How does she have it timed? Watches don’t work up here._

The noise might not be damaging her, but she couldn’t hear above the trumpet blaring to know when angels might be around the next corner. She could see just fine though, so she stuck her angel blade around the corner to make sure they were in the clear and then rushed him across into the next darkened corridor. They were making good time until they were in the middle of a corridor and an angel came around the corner in front of them. There was nowhere for them to go, so Beth indicated for Sam to stay against the wall before she stepped out into the middle of the hall to confront it. 

_Angels move a lot faster up here._ This one had Beth picked up by the collar and shoved into a wall faster than Beth could shift the balance on her feet, and it’d been half a hall length away from her. She must’ve been fast enough to run it through with her blade though, because she looked over its shoulder at Sam to indicate he should close his eyes before it’s knees buckled, and it started to drop her. 

He looked down just as the light from its grace flickered across the floor, and by the time he looked up, another angel Sam hadn’t even know was attacking Beth. She wasn’t off her knees yet, but she blocked the angel’s blade with her own before she grabbed the blade of the angel she’d just killed off the ground and rapidly thrust it into new one’s stomach. This time Sam knew when to look away and kept his focus on the other end of the hall to make sure there were no more angels approaching from that way at least. When he looked back at Beth, she’d gotten to her feet. It looked like they were in the clear again. He wanted to know why the angels were trying to kill her. The last he knew they wanted her to find out where the angel tablet was. He’d have to ask her after they got out of here.

After Beth handed him the spare blade she’d just picked up, she turned to continue leading them wherever they were going, but Sam grabbed her arm and made her halt when he saw her holding her side. She brushed it of and gave him a ‘thumbs up’ with a quick smile she didn’t mean before she pulled on the front of his shirt to get him moving again. This must be one of those times where she didn’t know when her body should be able to handle something, and when it shouldn’t. She was already leaving a trail of blood behind her from her leg, but she wasn’t letting it slow her down any. 

When they got where they were going, she used her angel blade to have a look around the corner, and pulled her hand away from her side, so she could begin using the blood to draw something on the wall around the corner. Sam took the opportunity to have a look at what they were facing and decided that her not letting her body slow down the way most people would was exactly what they needed, because there were about 20 angels between where they were and where they needed to be if that’s the way they were going. 

He looked at what she was doing and saw that she was painting a banishing sigil on the wall. “That works up here?” She put her finger in front of her lips to show that he should be quiet before she grabbed his hand and aimed it towards the banishing sigil. Then she indicated that she wanted him to stay hidden there, and he nodded that he understood. She’d play the bait and he would banish the angels on her signal. 

This time when she stepped out into the corridor, she said something to get the angels’ attention. Whatever she said seemed to make them all mad. _At least I’m not the only one she has that effect on._ He glanced at her to see when she thought the angels were close enough. He hadn’t been watching her back, so he didn’t see the angel coming up behind her until it was too late to warn her. Beth must’ve heard it, because as it went to grab her, she fell to her knees and brought her angel blade up over her head to stab it in stomach before she got back on her feet and glanced at Sam just before the grace from the one she stabbed started to erupt. 

Turning away from the exploding angel, Sam saw that her look must’ve been her signal. The 20 angels were within range, so he quickly cut the palm of his hand and slammed it over the banishing signal before they saw him. When Sam opened his eyes, a welcome sight at the end of the hall greeted him as Cas, Gabriel, and a third angel came around the corner supporting each other. They looked like they’d been through a real battle.

When Gabriel got to them, he pointed to a few places on Beth and shook his head before he said something. He didn’t look happy. Beth rolled her eyes and something back to Gabriel before she pointed at Gabriel’s injuries. Sam got Gabriel being worried about her, but Sam thought she did all right. Gabriel threw Sam a look in response to Sam’s thoughts before he said something, and Beth stepped in to explain the hearing loss and held up two fingers. 

Gabriel made a point of healing her first, but Sam was fine with that. He needed the extra time to decide what he wanted healed on him. One ankle, two knees, and the right shoulder . . . he needed his strong arm to be able to use his new angel blade and to be able to shoot, but then his right wrist still wasn’t quite right after Dean shot it. It didn’t matter. That was still his strong arm. Being on crutches and a cane all the time had helped strengthen his right wrist a little. He needed both arms even if they weren’t both perfect. So, shoulder, and . . . his left knee. Stairs would be easier for him if he had at least one leg that worked, and that’d mean his left side would be healed. Maybe he could get a good night’s sleep if he had a side he could sleep on that didn’t get uncomfortable if he laid on it for too long. 

When Gabriel healed him, Sam picked up Beth and Cas’s exchange in the background. Cas wasn’t any happier than Beth was that Dean had gone for the vaults. Sam wondered what Cas’s plans were for Purgatory if he felt like he had to pretend not to care about Dean the way he had for the last year, because it was obvious he still did. Beth glanced at Gabriel and then looked back at Cas before she tilted her head to the side, and she and Cas took off down a side hall, leaving Gabriel to shake his head and say to Sam, “I knew I should’ve been stricter with her when she was growing up . . . I’m going to get you out of here, and then Gadreel will take you back to your camp to help you keep it safe. Take the time to get to know him. The two of you would have shared an interesting future together. Still might. Who knows? No time for your Dad and Adam this time around. Have one of your psychics warn them. All of us have to be out of here by the time my brother’s get involved, and they can’t know that Dean is up here, or we’ll have some real problems.”


	44. Civil War

Dean finally caught up to Balthazar on the 6th floor, just above the vaults. Should’ve never brought Sam up here. It’d slowed Dean way down. Sam coming up with something else he could do that was safer than being here and didn’t involve Dean dragging his ass up huge freaking stairs was just about the best thing Sam could’ve done. “So, what’s the deal? Are you planning on handing me over to Michael’s angels?” Dean wanted his damn ears healed and thought if he talked loud enough Balthazar would take the hint and heal him or risk giving away their position. Balthazar’s rolled his eyes as he reached for Dean’s shoulder, and a couple seconds later, Dean could finally hear. 

“Next time, ask if you want healed . . . and try these,” Balthazar said as he handed him some kind of magical angel earplugs. “Getting into the vaults is more for you than me. What I want is to know whose side Virgil is on. He’s always guarded the vaults. He’s powerful and smart. If he’s changed sides, he won’t reveal it unless it’s for something big. If he sees you . . . “ 

Dean sighed before he said, “Tries to kill me and has angels waiting in my Heaven to keep me on lockdown . . . he works for Raphael. If he tries to have me taken to Michael, he still works for Michael. What happens if he works for Michael? How’re you –“ Dean cut himself off. “You really don’t think he does. This is just one of those angel confirmation things . . . you need proof, like Cas needed it before he could make a move on Uriel?” 

Balthazar smirked. “You’re smarter than I thought you’d be.” 

_Not smart enough to stay out of Heaven._ “You play by the rules a lot more than I thought you would.” 

“I experiment on pushing my boundaries, but it’s not like the big boss man is gone. We still have to answer to him. If I had a choice, and I’m beginning to think that I do . . . I would follow Gabriel. He’s the only one doing anything, and he’s more fun. That is how I am willing to show my rebellious side for the time being, but I have plans,” Balthazar responded. 

_Yeah, I bet he does._ According to Beth, Balthazar would’ve been selfish and all about drinking, women and buying up souls if Michael had gone into the pit with Lucifer. Eventually, Balthazar would’ve done the right thing, but the carefree selfish guy is who Dean thought was lingering beneath the surface of the angel next to him. It had to be or Balthazar wouldn’t have let Cas take the wrap for him everytime they did something to get in trouble up here. 

That reminded him. Cas was bad at being bad. Dean needed to get this show on the road, so he could go find him. He got up into a low crouch, and said, “It’s the guy giving all the orders down there?” 

He paused when Balthazar grabbed his arm. “Wait. You do realize that even if he doesn’t work for Michael, the rest of them do, right?” 

_Not all of them. That’s what I’m counting on._ “There is no way Raphael doesn’t have angels in with the vault guards. They’re gonna be around Virgil near the vault and at the entrances and exits, so they can keep Michael’s reinforcements from getting close to the vaults . . . My money is on Virgil being with Michael . . . you don’t get a job like he’s got if there’s ever been a question of loyalty . . . Figure it’ll help all of us out if Virgil knows whose on his side before Raphael gives the signal that he wants those weapons. That’s the only reason I’m doing this . . . that and you’re gonna get me something good out of the vault while I distract them,” Dean answered before he put his magic earplugs in and continued on his way to a different set of stairs than the ones he’d used to get up there. It was the only way to get down to the vaults. This place was like a freaking maze. 

When Dean got to the 3rd floor, he waited just inside the stairwell for the latest earthquake to stop . . . It looked like magic angel earplugs worked, because now it just sounded like an annoying trumpet instead of the universes’s loudest air raid siren mixed with a fog horn. Unfortunately, he couldn’t have the earplugs in when he went out there. He should have between 3 and 5 minutes before he needed ‘em again. _Might as well go for the walking in uninvited option._

Dean stepped out onto the 3rd story walkway and walked right past the first couple of angels. It wasn’t exactly the reception he was expecting. Then he got it. They knew he was there, but he was a human, so he was unimportant. Weaving through the ranks of angels, he nearly got all the way to the vault. He wondered what they’d do if he went to the vault door. Best not to chance it. He’d already tried his luck by getting this far. He walked back through the rows and stopped just before he got back to the stairs and said, “I’d hate to be you guys when you tell Michael that Dean Winchester . . . his intended vessel was here, and you all let him get away.” _That’s more like it._

From what he could tell, it looked like it was a pretty even split. The angels looking at him to try and see if he was telling the truth were with Michael. The ones looking at those angels were with Raphael. Dean glanced at Virgil who’d come into view at the end of the row Dean was standing in, and it looked like Virgil was seeing what he was as far as angel traitors went, so Dean said, “Now you know.” 

Virgil pulled his sword in preparation at the same time Dean pulled his angel blade out of the inside lining of his jacket. The only way Dean figured he was walking out of this now was to get them fighting, so he killed one of the angels standing nearest to him that had been paying way too much attention to the angel next to it. The angels up here were a hell of a lot more powerful than the ones on the first floor or that one Sam killed in the halls. 

Dean kept his eyes on the nuke when lit up the entire 3rd floor. He didn’t know if he’d go blind. Beth said he wouldn’t . . . said there was something about him that made him special if he could look directly at an angel’s dyin’ grace like that. He didn’t know what. He’d never asked her. Now he never could, cuz she wouldn’t remember. 

Him not going blind seemed to kickstart the rest of ‘em into action. The angel he’d just defended by killing the other angel grabbed him by the arm and started pulling him down the stairs saying, “Do you really believe Josiah aligned himself with Raphael?” 

_That’s right. They all know what I’m thinking. I hate that._ It was only after they got to the bottom of a brand new flight of giant stairs he’d never been in that he realized that she had to have flown him down here, or he wouldn’t have gotten there that fast. That or she was one of the giants and it’d only looked like she was running down the stairs with him when what she’d really done was carry him down the stairs by the arm. It hadn’t felt like he’d been carried though. If anything the stairs had felt like normal stairs for the first time since he’d been here. _Beth was right. This place is a complete headfuck._

The reason they’d stopped was because there were a couple of angels that’d followed them down, so the angel he was with turned to fight them off. _Fuck. Angels are fast._ Luckily, his angel won and turned to get them down the next flight of stairs. That’s when he finally answered her question. “Uh, yeah . . . only reason Josiah was watching you and not me was because he was planning to take you out before you could take me to Michael.” 

She stopped when they got to the ground floor and turned back to face the stairs again while she told him to stay where he was against the wall just as three more angels came flying down the stairs to confront her. Dean finally had a chance to get away from her, so of course he wasn’t going to do what she’d said, but that was before he looked around the corner of the stairwell and out into the main hall. _Wow. That. Is . . . Biblical. Where the fuck did all those angels come from?_

Now there were tens of thousands of angels all engaged in combat. Most had angel blades. A lot had swords too. Some had shields and full body armor. Others had maces. Some didn’t have anything, cuz they’d been disarmed and had to resort to hand-to-hand combat. _Uh . . . did I just light the fuse on this powder keg?_ He’d thought that it’d already been lit, cuz of that horn blowing . . . _Oh shit. Almost forgot about the earplugs._ The horn started a few seconds later and knocked him to the floor now that he was near where it seemed to be a million times louder.

The angel chick picked him up off the ground and led the way out into the hall. They stayed along the edges and headed for the main entrance. Dean had his angel blade ready, but they were on the run, and there was too much going on for him to do more than take a quick swipe at any angels that got too close to him while he ran past. He didn’t know why he was following this angel. She was just gonna hand him over to Michael. He stopped briefly and glanced up at the 5th story to see if he could find Balthazar. 

Balthazar seemed like his best option at the moment, but the angel wasn’t there. Dean wondered if he’d already hit the vaults or if the floor the vaults were on was too packed. It looked like it. He hoped Balthazar was wrong about Virgil, because that angel was a complete badass, mowing down angels left, right, and center. Dean’s attention was drawn back to what was going on around him when he felt his arm being grabbed, but when he turned to stab whoever it was, he saw that it was the angel chick again. The horn had stopped, so he ran with her while he took out the earplugs . . . should’ve left ‘em in until they got out of there, cuz the sound of the war cries and clashing of steel was almost as deafening as the horn. 

When they got out of the giant room, he followed the angel he was with down a few halls and broke off from her when he found a hall he recognized. After that he went down a few different corridors until he found one dark enough for him to hide in while he waited to see if she’d followed him. When he heard her voice behind him asking, “Why are you going this way?” Dean snorted while he turned to look at her.

“I ain’t sayin’ ‘yes’ to Michael . . . That’s not why I’m here.” 

“Why did you reveal yourself if you didn’t want to be his vessel?” 

_She almost seems reasonable for an angel. Maybe she’ll listen?_ “Balthazar said he needed me to test Virgil and see which side he was on, and while I did that, Balthazar was supposed to get some weapons out of the vault.” 

She looked towards the room where all the fighting was going on and asked if he knew which side Virgil was on. It looked like it meant a lot to her to think that Virgil was still one of the good guys, so Dean said, “He was killing a whole lot of angels up there, and it looked more like he was guarding the vault than trying to make room for angels to get in behind him and open it up.” 

She nodded and looked back at Dean before saying, “No angel will be able to get into the vaults while he is there or until all those loyal to Michael are dead. If Balthazar told you he could, than he tricked you into igniting this war.” _All I wanted was a damn weapon._

She asked, “Why would Balthazar do this?” just before pushing Dean up against the wall to hide them from more angels running towards the main hall. Now that Dean thought about it . . . if that’s what Balthazar was trying to do, Dean thought maybe he liked Balthazar a little more now. 

“If I had to guess, I’d say he set it up as a diversion, because Cas is breaking Gabriel outta prison and might’ve run into some problems.” 

His angel bodyguard looked back at him in confusion and asked, “Who is Cas, and why is Gabriel in Heaven’s prison?” Whoever she was, she wasn’t in the know, so she might be powerful, but she wasn’t upper management. 

“Cas as in Castiel, and Gabriel got locked up, cuz whoever locked him up was setting a trap for Beth.” She questioned who Beth was, and Dean thought that was a good question. He used to know. 

“If you heard the rumors about a girl with half a living soul running around up here, that’s her. She was up here on Raphael’s orders. Raphael had the punishing angels from Hell torture her too, so if you see Kushiel . . . He’s on Raphael’s side. She was up here for almost 30 years, but she got to Earth and has her body now, because she met with God. He let her go and had Gabriel teach her how to be human, so Beth thinks of him like a Father, and that’s why him being in prison now is a trap for her.” 

The angel looked awe struck and quickly whispered, “God met with her?” Dean nodded, so she said, “Then she should be protected . . . and you’re sure Kushiel is involved? What about the other Guards of Hell?” 

“Cas thinks so. He thinks when Raphael gives the order they’re gonna let the things in the abyss out, so they can join Raphael’s army.” 

She watched him to see if he was telling him the truth and then must’ve decided he was, because she said, “You know a lot for a human . . . much more than my brothers and sisters do. I owe you my life. I will not take you to Michael. If Gabriel is up here, I will follow him. I suspect more of my siblings would agree. Perhaps that is also why he was imprisoned. I will help you find him and Castiel . . . I was never in his garrison, but I know of him. All of Heaven knows him and what he did to avert the Apocalypse . . . he rebelled, and yet he was brought back by God, so whatever side he is on must be the right one.” 

She turned and started leading him down the maze of halls. Be good to know who his traveling companion was and get an idea of whether or not she was on the level. “I am Hael . . . I made the Grand Canyon.” She stopped to engage an angel that made the mistake of heading down the hall they were walking down. It was weird having an armed guard with him, but that’s what it looked like he had, cuz she wasn’t lettin’ him fight anything. 

When they started moving again, Dean said, “Never got to see it . . . always wanted to . . . maybe when this is over, I’ll get a chance.” 

“I haven’t seen it either . . . perhaps Gabriel will let me.” A few seconds later, they rounded a corner in time to see Cas be picked up and thrown against a wall a second before Beth stabbed the angel that did it in the back with her blade and was tackled from the side by another angel. She must’ve brought a second blade up in time for that one to fall on it, cuz light went shooting out of that angel too after it landed on top of her. 

When Beth opened her eyes, she saw Dean as he moved past Hael to get to her, and it looked like she relaxed some before she said, “You got away from the main hall?” He didn’t know how she knew that’s where he’d been, but nodded, while he helped her stand. Blood was all over her clothes, but he didn’t think she was hurt as bad as she seemed. She’d been healed at least once, but she had a limp and maybe a couple of stab wounds to her left arm and right side. 

She caught him doing an assessment of her injuries. He knew he was supposed to be letting her go, but old habits die-hard. She looked down at her clothes and said, “They’re trying to kill me now. I don’t know why . . . Cas doesn’t know why either.” 

Hael looked around Dean and said, “Her soul is much brighter than I thought it would be.” 

Cas put himself in front of Beth and stared down at Hael. “What have you been told about her, Hael?” 

Cas looked pretty intimidating, and you could see the shadow of his wings against the wall behind him. It seemed to work, cuz the badass Hael that Dean had seen up until that point was nowhere in sight as she took a step back and said something meekly in Enochian. Beth translated, so Dean could be in on it, “Michael has changed his orders. He thinks I should be dead . . . soul completely wiped out kind of dead . . . she doesn’t know why. Those are just the orders . . . there are rumors . . . Raphael wants me dead as well, but she doesn’t know why, because she aligned with Michael . . . after speaking with his vessel, she wants to follow Gabriel instead.” 

Cas said something else to Hael in Enochian while he gave Beth a sign that he wanted her to go, and Beth grabbed Dean’s hand. “Come on . . . we have to go. They’ll catch up. We have to get out of Heaven . . . like yesterday, cuz the big players are about to get involved, and we can’t be up here when that happens.” 

Dean pulled away from her and looked back at Cas. “She’s the only reason I’m standin’ here, Cas. Don’t kill her . . . She wants to help find Gabriel.” 

Cas didn’t take his eyes of Hael, as he said, “Gabriel is already free . . . He and Gadreel took Sam out of here. Gadreel is taking Sam to the camp, so he can have Missouri inform your Dad and Adam that they need to stay hidden from Michael and his angels . . . Gabriel is coming back to help us look for you. It would be best if he did not have to return.” 

Then Cas asked Beth something in Enochian. Beth nodded while she looked at Hael and replied in Enochian. _Why is she keeping things from me? Oh, yeah . . . that’s right. She’s not my Beth anymore._ Dean found himself finally starting to get pissed off about her being up here and the way she left now that he’d found her again. 

“Let it go, Dean . . . at least until we get out of here. Then you can yell until your heart’s content,” Beth said before she turned to start leading the way. Dean waited to make sure that Cas wasn’t going to kill Hael and then followed Beth. _Yell until my heart’s content? My Beth wouldn’t say that . . . would she?_

He was finding it harder and harder to remember what she’d been like on small things like that. He hated that he didn’t know if that were something she’d say. It was like she was dead, and - Cas stopped him from his next thought. “I think I am beginning to understand why she said she was already dead. You still do not see it, Dean . . . You should let her go. It would be better for her if you did.” 

Beth sighed. “I’m right fucking here . . . Dean . . . I never thought I’d have to say this, but get your head in the game. Cas . . . stop baiting him. I think your plan can allow you to back off until we get out of here. In the future I saw, you didn’t turn into a complete asshole until towards the end . . . we’ve still got time for that, but not if we don’t –“ 

Beth cut herself off and pressed her back up against the wall while she closed her eyes. Cas brushed past Dean, so he could put his hands on Beth’s shoulders and say something to her in Enochian. The whole Enochian thing was really starting to piss Dean off along with the fact that Cas was way too close . . . almost intimate with her. Beth took a couple of deep breaths before she looked up at Cas and nodded. Cas didn’t seem sure, but Beth gave him a look, like she was good, so Cas backed off and Beth said, “Cover your ears, Dean . . . it’s about to get loud again.” 

Dean wanted to know what the hell was going on, but did what she said by pulling out his earplugs and got them in just before the walls started trembling. Hael had to stop him from falling over again when they started walking, which was so not cool. He was better than that. Beth put her angel blade around the next corner to see if the coast was clear and it was, so she led them down it before the cut off into another side hallway that was pretty dark.

At the next hallway, that trumpet was still going, so she checked with her angel blade again, but this time after she did it, she looked a little longer, like she saw something she didn’t expect before her hand dropped, and she threw a serious look back at Cas. Whatever she thought to Cas, Dean wasn’t able to pick up on it, so she was still blocking him. Didn’t look like she was blocking Hael, because Hael brought her blade up into a ready position, but Beth shook her head at her and glanced at Dean before she nodded in Dean’s direction to Cas.

Grabbing Dean’s shoulder to get his attention, Cas started to lead the way back down the hall they’d just come down at a run. Hael was with them. Dean looked behind him, and saw Beth running too. Whatever she saw, none of them thought they could fight it . . . kind of meant it was one of two things. Michael or Raphael. None of them had an archangel blade, so no . . . none of them could deal with it. Best to get outta the way and stay hidden. When they got to the next intersection, Cas and Hael didn’t even slow down to check if there were angels in that hallway. Dean figured that maybe as angels they knew nothing was headin’ towards ‘em, so he kept on running to the next darkened hallway too. 

Uh . . . He’d been so wrong on the Michael or Raphael thing. There were things heading towards ‘em from the left that hadn’t there a few minutes ago. It was an army that made the lights go out as it moved towards them at a steady pace. Everything behind the army was pitch black. Dean saw nukes goin’ off down side hallways like the ones they were running down behind the dark army. Everything caught in the darkness was being killed . . . the daevas? Dean didn’t even want to know what the deformed things walkin’ towards them were . . . demon children or demon angels. Didn’t matter. Just the sight of them in a solid wall like that awakened something primal in him that told him to get the fuck away from them, and they were still pretty far away. The lights were shutting down with the army as it moved. How was that even possible? It’s not like there was electricity in Heaven . . . no light switches . . . Raphael must be doin’ something, so the daevas could have free reign.

At the next hall they came to it looked like the army was headin’ towards ‘em down that hall too, so they kept goin’, but they picked up Balthazar there. The trumpet stopped and Dean took the earplugs out. His ears confirmed what his eyes had told him as the screams from dying angels accompanied the light from their grace behind the darkened halls of Raphael’s army . . . They had to get out of these side hallways and run down the main halls away from the army, but they’d be herded back to that big room where all the fighting was happening. There was nowhere they could hide between here and there. 

Dean had no idea where the elevator was, because you couldn’t exactly tell where north, south, east, and west was up here, but Beth must think it was too far away for them to get to in time, and maybe all the main halls of Heaven were seeing something similar. Every angel not caught in the darkness of Hell’s army was gonna end up in that main hall . . . that was checkmate unless the angels had something else up their sleeve . . . the vault? Maybe, but the angels were busy fighting over that right now. 

Dean heard Beth say, “At the next hall turn right . . . keep going . . . we have to get back to the chapel . . . we have to get Raphael’s angelic army on our side . . . It won’t matter if they’re working for Raphael now. All the angels are going to be wiped out by that army no matter whose side they’re on,” and quickly looked down at her. 

“The last place we need to be is that room, Beth.” 

She took a deep breath and kept her focus on the next hall. “There’s nowhere else to go . . . and we have to make a stand . . . and to be honest . . . I owe them . . . the ones I lured away from the prison using Gabriel’s horn . . . They’re already dead. I don’t need to go look to know the part where I sent them has already been overtaken.” Dean slowed down some to keep pace with her, so she didn’t get left behind when they turned right at the next corner. 

She didn’t owe the angels anything. She translated what he was feeling and said, “I do. A civil war with most left standing is fair. A complete annihilation isn’t. They’re not all bad . . . most of them are sheep and have the potential to be good. And there has to be more good in the universe . . . we can’t be left with nothing but that army heading towards us . . . I mean look at Hael . . . even though she tried to force Cas to be her vessel and then tried to kill him in the future I saw . . . she’s gone from following Michael to wanting to follow Gabriel and helping us . . . that is a major shift for an angel to make in a short amount of time . . . There are more, Dean. We’re gonna need their help . . . starting with Michael, and I know he’s in the main hall. They run a fire alarm type of drill up here sometimes, so they can be prepared in the event of an attack. It’s the reason Cas and I didn’t want you anywhere near the main hall, because we knew that’s where Michael would go. It’s why this army we’re running from is heading that way too. Michael is the only one that might have a chance of getting through to Raphael’s supporters, and getting every last angel in Heaven together to fight against that army is the only chance any of us have . . . if we don’t stop it up here . . . it’s going to spill out onto Earth . . . Rogue needs us to make sure it doesn’t.” 

The thought of his baby girl being ripped apart by the things behind him pushed him a little harder. _What if they already have? What if – ___

__“If they started their journey here when the trumpets started, than I’m guessing they spent most of their time getting out of the abyss and then out the hidden back doors of Hell that lead into Heaven . . . the same doors their prison wardens have been using to get here for eons. They’re here to get rid of Raphael’s greatest threat first . . . Once that’s gone, he’ll come for the rest of us.”_ _

__Dean watched Hael collide with another angel that came out of a connecting hallway in front of them. It looked like he was going to fight with her until she pointed behind them. The angel looked from the Dark Army to Cas and Balthazar and then joined their little gang of misfits. “Is he –“_ _

__Cas interrupted what Dean was going to say. “He followed Raphael until about 5 seconds ago.” Maybe there was a chance if they could get all of those angels he’d seen fighting in the giant room on the same side. Cas responded again to what Dean had been thinking. “We all have a common enemy now . . . Unleashing this abominable army will be Raphael’s greatest mistake.” War. When potential enemies became allies at the drop of a hat . . . it’s why they were heading towards Michael now when 10 minutes ago they were trying to stay away from him._ _

__When they got to the main hall . . . the fighting in there was still going on but there was fighting on every story going up thousands of stories . . . there were hundreds of thousands of angels in here now . . . maybe millions . . . and none of them knew what was heading straight for them. Dean caught his breath while he watched Michael in the middle of the hall fighting of a horde of angels. Michael . . . he was the biggest badass up here for a reason . . . Dean saw Gabriel fighting next to him . . . looked like the whole gang was here, and there was no way to get their attention to let them know what was about to hit._ _

__Beth shot past him, so Dean went after her into the fray. Every time she fell or was knocked down, she was up and running again before he could get to her. He was stopped when an angel turned and took a cheap shot at him, but the angel blade sticking in his shoulder was about all he had time to process before he was knocked to the ground, and Cas was there telling Dean to get up and get to Michael and Gabriel before he took on the angel himself._ _

__Hael helped Dean to his feet, and Balthazar healed him. Then those two started blocking him from any more angels that got too close . . . It seemed like the angels were so lost in the heat of battle, they were just striking out against anything that moved by them, and they didn’t known he was a vessel for Michael or that he was human. They just saw movement and went on the attack . . . but that meant a lot of them could be fighting angels that were on their own side. Angels really were fucking morons . . . or mindless sheep. How the fuck they managed to survive this long after as many wars as Cas made it seem like they’d had, Dean didn’t know._ _

__“Before there was always a clear side and we knew the ones that were in the trenches next to us were with us,” Hael said after she stopped to pull Dean behind her and maimed the angel that had moved in from the left._ _

__“Right . . . I get that. Just maybe it’s better to hold off until you can see who’s on the other side and know what’s what,” Dean said as he dodged an angel that came at them from the right before he tripped it up, so it fell._ _

__He took off running and Hael said, “That’s what we were doing until Balthazar had you show yourself by the vaults.”_ _

__Sounded kinda dirty, but Dean didn’t get to say that, because Balthazar responded, “It worked, didn’t it? The ones that want to protect Michael are with him . . . like Hannah. She’s got her back to Michael and is defending him from the others . . . a battle like this is the only way to finally know who is on what side . . . wasn’t exactly expecting that army from Hell to show up, but now that it has, I think all the angels are going to be on the same side soon enough, and I can’t wait for that to happen. I’m tired of all the tension and distrust.”_ _

__Beth jumped between two soldiers that had their backs to her near the middle of the room where Gabriel and Michael were. She stayed down and belly crawled through more angels fighting until she finally got to Gabriel. When Gabriel saw her down by his feet, he gave her a disapproving look until she touched his foot. He quickly blocked an angel he’d been fighting before he pulled her to her feet and said something to her, and she nodded._ _

__Gabriel glanced towards the entrances of the main hall before he nudged her towards Michael and took a protective stance behind her while she approached Michael hesitantly from the back. Dean decided that she was too close to Michael without him being with her and what he and the other two were doing was taking too long, so he ran past them and followed Beth’s lead on getting past the ring of angels fighting around Michael and Gabriel . . . except without the face plant . . . it was more of a graceful fall where he landed on his side and then crawled past the fighting around him until he got to Gabriel._ _

__Gabriel had that disappointed father’s look down, and the fact he was giving it to Dean . . . Dean wasn’t exactly sure what to do with how that made him feel . . . never really got it from his own Dad for doing something his Dad thought was too dangerous. Mostly his Dad never thought he pushed himself hard enough or did the right thing. Gabriel helped him up and said, “As long as you don’t say, ‘yes’ to my brother . . . you’ll be doin’ the right thing. Keep an eye on her . . . can’t seem to keep her healed long enough for it to make much of a difference today . . . if I tell you to get her out of here . . . do whatever it takes to make her leave with you. Don’t let her stay behind for me.”_ _

__Dean nodded while he watched Michael study Beth after she’d got his attention by touching his arm. Balthazar, Hael, and Hannah picked up Michael’s slack while his attention was elsewhere. Whatever she’d let Michael know, it was similar to what she must’ve let Gabriel know, because he glanced towards the exits as well before shoving Beth behind him and stabbing into the chest of an angel that had been about to skewer her from the back._ _

__Michael’s focus went back to the fighting as he looked over his shoulder in Gabriel’s direction behind him. “Brother, do you have your horn of truth?”_ _

__“Might’ve lost it in a poker game . . . There’s not enough time to let the Rafa’s angels hear what she has to say anyway,” Gabriel answered while he shoved Dean behind him. Michael and Gabriel were now blocking Dean and Beth from the front and the back. Cas, Hael, and Balthazar stood at their sides. It was an unusual position for Dean to find himself in._ _

__Michael and Gabriel glanced one another, and Gabriel stooped down towards the ground while he grabbed Beth’s spell bag from her hand. When Gabriel was done scrawling on the floor, he said something in Enochian. Beth took Dean’s hand and pulled him down with her to touch the sigil at the same time that Gabriel did, and blue light came out of the sigil. Then that loud trumpet noise started coming out of the sigil on the ground. This time Dean didn’t need the earplugs._ _

__He glanced at Beth as they stayed crouched in the middle of an epic battle and said, “That’s why you didn’t need the magic angel earplugs?” She gave him a curt nod before she looked up and angels began dropping like flies off of the balconies onto the bottom floor. It was a spell that called angels to it. That’s why Beth felt responsible for the ones that had already been killed by Hell’s army . . . She’s the one that worked the spell the first time._ _

__Dean looked around and realized whatever fighting had been going on between angels down here had stopped at the sounds of the screams coming from the top floors of the room. Whatever had made the lights go out down the halls was hitting this room now, starting at the top, and working it’s way down one floor at a time . . . the angels on the ground floor turned to face the entrances as a united front . . . _How? Angel radio?_ _ _

__He had no idea how they heard it over all the noise from the trumpet, but maybe Gabriel and Michael had the mojo to pull something like that off together. More angels were flying down from the upper levels to land on the main floor, and that’s roughly when all Hell broke loose when the demented figures from the Dark Army started pouring in through the doorways . . . the spawn of demons were picking up angels and tossing them across the room into other angels, like they were nothing . . . angels from both sides were helping them up. Some of the demon angels were . . . were they smiting the other angels? How the fuck was that possible?_ _

__They may not have real bodies, because they were all coming here straight from Hell, and even though your mind made you see them in a way that made sense to you, you could still pick out things that set them apart from the normal angels, like the color of their eyes . . . Azazel’s the only other demon with yellow eyes that Dean had ever seen, but these all had yellow eyes too. If that’s what Azazel was, it explained a hell of a lot, and Dean knew the Colt worked on ‘em. He wished he had it now. _How do you kill them without the Colt?_ _ _

__Watching what the other angels did, it looked like an angel blade did the job. Then the next thing Dean knew . . . he was being thrown by an invisible force away from the main circle of fighting. Cas was there in seconds and took on a demon . . . full-blooded, never been human, red eyed, bat eared, pale skinned, giant fucking winged, demon while Dean scrambled back from it, so he could get up without being stepped on by the angels that were fighting other full-blooded demons and yellow-eyed demons around him._ _

__This one picked Cas up by the neck, so Dean lunged towards his back with his blade and stabbed it 5 times in quick succession. Slowed it down . . . didn’t kill it, so he stabbed it a few more times and then it fell. Fuck. And that was with the angel blade. These angels were gonna lose if that’s what it took to take one of those demons down._ _

__Dean helped Cas to his feet, and they worked together to try and get back towards the middle. That’s when time slowed down for Dean. Beth stabbed into the heart of a yellow-eyed demon and turned to cut the head off of a full-blooded demon, but that’s when another one of the yellow-eyed freaks came up behind her and stabbed her through the back. She fell forward and landed on her hands and knees. It caught her by surprise, and she looked a little pissed off as she pulled her hand away from her stomach and saw it covered in blood._ _

__He didn’t get to see what happened next, because he was picked up again and thrown further away from her. Time sped back up, and he glanced at her as he hit the ground. She was still on her feet and fighting. It hadn’t happened yet, but the only reason one of them got the shining like this was when one of them was about to die. It could be changed . . . she’d stopped it from happening to him outside Las Vegas, and he’d stopped her from being killed in Wyoming._ _

__A yellow-eyed demon near where he’d landed smote an angel next to him before it turned its attention on Dean, but Cas got there and intervened. This time, Cas was quickly disarmed and had to fight hand-to-hand with the demon until he somehow got the upper-hand by loosening the yellow-eyed demon’s hold on it’s own blade, caught the blade as it dropped and thrust it into the yellow-eyed demon’s chest. Bending down to pick up his blade, Cas also grabbed Dean by the arm to get him back up again._ _

__“Go to Beth . . . she -“_ _

__“Dean . . . She is fine. You . . . are not.” Cas looked down at Dean’s side and showed him where he’d apparently been stabbed. Blood was pouring out of him. Cas put his hand on Dean’s shoulder and healed him before he got Dean moving again. When Dean looked at Beth again, what he’d seen happen to her had already happened . . . She was trying to crawl away from the fighting in the middle, so she didn’t get stepped on . . . Michael and Gabriel hadn’t noticed, or if they did, they were both too busy to help her. Dean glanced up as another floor level went dark. He still had time to get her out of here, but not much._ _


	45. Keep Fighting

_Stupid asshole demonic-angels and angels and anything supernatural. I’m fucking sick of it._ I think I’d finally reached my limits on being carved up by angel blades or thrown around the place for today. 

_God . . . I, uh, didn’t get to finish what I was saying before I got stabbed, but uh . . . I really wish you’d get rid of this Army from Hell . . . I know there are other angels to contend with up here that will be a problem once the Army from Hell is gone . . . feel free to smite them too if you want . . . if not, we’ll handle it._

That’s right around when I got kicked in the side by something a lot bigger than me and went sliding across the floor. Balthazar was wherever I stopped and looked concerned when he realized I was bleeding, but he didn’t have time to do anything about it, because he had to engage the ugly ass demon that’d kicked me. I pushed myself up onto my hands and knees and looked up briefly. The lights were still going out on the stories above us. We had maybe 3 more stories and the daevas would be here. Then we’d be screwed. I didn’t know what was taking so long. Maybe God was staying out of this one. I didn’t fault Him or Her. I wouldn’t want to help me either. This whole war was my fault, because I’d insisted on coming up here. This was on me. The entire Heavenly host was going to be wiped out, because I was an idiot.

_Keep fighting. If you’re going to go out, go out on your feet. Get up and fight . . . Okay stop being so bossy._ I took a couple of deep breaths, got one of my feet under me, and pushed down on my knee with both hands to help me stand. There was a demonic angel kicking Hael’s ass, so I held onto my stomach and twirled my angel blade around into a tighter grip, so I could stab it in the back. Demons didn’t hesitate in fighting dirty, so why shouldn’t I? 

Case in point would be me being picked up and thrown by some breed of demon shortly after the light burst out of that demonic angel. I landed hard on my back and thought about staying there. Looking up at the chapel above us . . . 2 more levels, and then we were done. _Get up. Keep moving . . . I’ll try . . . Don’t try. Do it. Think of your daughter._ Every time the sun set, those daevas would come out, and I didn’t want Rogue to grow up in a world like that. 

Rolling onto my side, I looked towards the nearest exit. That looked like a good place to go. I needed somewhere I could regroup without being stepped on by clumsy ass angels. When I was nearly to the hall, I stopped. What about the daevas out there just waiting to get in here once the whole place went dark? Couldn’t exactly go out there. _Hang out by the wall? . . . Yeah, sure. Why not? Use it to get back on your feet._

When I got to the wall, I turned around to slump against it and watch the scene being played out in front of me. It. Was. Bedlam . . . Hell in Heaven, and the forces of good or semi-good, if you want to count the angels as that, were losing. I looked for Dean in the chaos and found him. He’d already seen me. He looked like he was trying to fight his way towards me, but he was having a rough time of it and kept being attacked or picked up and thrown every time he got up. He looked like he was starting to panic, and he couldn’t afford to do that in the middle of a battle like this, but I knew why he was. There was a bloody trail following me to where I sat against the wall. 

I looked down at my stomach. I was soaked in blood. That’s okay. I’d been through worse. I tried to use the wall to stand and slipped in my blood that had pooled on the marble under me. The floor above us went dark. _Okay God . . . You’re playing hardball today, so I’m going to simplify it . . . Get Dean out of here. If you want to make sure good survives . . . that it doesn’t all turn into what I’m seeing in this room. Make sure he lives through this and get him back to Earth . . . Do what you want with me._

Dean was suddenly there by my side. That prayer almost seemed to work. I was shooting more for him just being sent to Bobby’s, but I guess he was out of the main battlefield. I just had no idea how he was going to get out of here with the daevas in the halls surrounding us. Dean started searching through his bag while he knelt in front of me and said, “I’ve got a few flares. Should see us to the elevator if we hurry.” 

_Flares . . . I don’t know if there will be enough light from them to hold off those daevas, but I guess it’s better than nothing . . . although Gabriel and Michael should be able to produce enough light to hold the daevas off for a while . . . That’s where their focus will have to go instead of fighting. The other angels will have to keep fighting the demon ground troops for them, but it’s a losing battle. Dean has to take his chances with the flares and go._

“Dean . . . “ 

He put his hands on my shoulders to make me look at him while he said, “Cas is coming. He’ll heal you and then we’ll go.” I looked past Dean to try and find Cas in all the chaos. He was fighting something . . . shit. Looked like a yellow-eyed, full-blooded demon hybrid. Eww . . . the implications of that pairing were gross. Killing that was gonna take Cas awhile. 

I looked back at Dean and shook my head. “I don’t think there’s time. This whole thing is my fault. I’m the one who just had to break Gabriel out of prison, and he was fine in there. I deserve whatever happens . . . You need to go. The daevas are going to be on this floor any second.” Dean muttered that he wasn’t going to let me say goodbye, and he wasn’t going to let me be ripped to shreds by the daevas before he paused after lighting the flare and seeing how bright it was. 

_Thanks for making these flares super-charged, God._ It made me feel better about Dean’s chances. “I told myself when we went to clear out Vegas that I wouldn’t do this, but you beat me to it when you locked me in that vault, so I consider it fair game . . . You need to do whatever you have to do to get back to Rogue. You already know what it takes to kill these things . . . full-blooded demons are easy . . . just chop their heads off . . . angel-demons . . . just like any other angel . . . not sure about the daevas, but there’s a ward I know that might work . . . I don’t know if it’ll work on something that old, but it’s worth a try . . . give me your hand, and I’ll draw it on there, so you can see it.” 

He put his hand on the side of my head and leaned forward to rest his forehead on mine. It tore hard at those emotions I was trying to contain. “You remember?” 

“I had Cas give my memories back before I got up here. I needed to know my way around . . . I -“ 

He cut me off by leaning back and putting the flare in my hand, but I stopped him from picking me up. “You’ll need both of your hands free. You have to leave me – “ 

He ignored me and picked me up anyway, which hurt until he adjusted me some. “Dean, I need to stay here. If there’s –“ 

“If you think staying in Heaven the way it is now will keep the reapers away longer, tell me how to get to one of your libraries . . . I won’t be able to fix what those daevas are gonna do to you if you stay in here . . . What’d you pray for me to be with you, so you could say goodbye again?” 

He stopped his rant as he stepped hesitantly into the darkened hallway. “No, I asked for you to make it out of here alive . . . and said God could do whatever He wanted with me.” 

Dean glanced up as we heard the screeching from the daeva surrounding us. “Well, it looks like whatever happens to you is up to me if God put me next to you instead of on Earth. I’m not leaving without you.” 

I rested my head against his chest and sighed. He was too stubborn, and I was too tired to argue about it. “Okay . . . I’ll tell you how to get to the closest library.” I had him turn right down the next hallway. After we turned left to get out of that hallway, the last of the lights in the chapel must’ve gone down, because the screams and sounds of fighting and screeching crescendoed. “What about Cas? And Gabriel?” I asked wishing that I could get back there and get them. 

“After I fix you and get you down to Earth . . . I’ll come back for them.” 

“I’m sorry, Dean . . . for the way I left things . . . wasn’t very nice,” I responded after pointing him right and telling him to go three halls up and then left again. He ignored my apology the way I knew he would. He always ignored apologies. 

After he got to the hallway I’d directed him to, I told him to go 2 up and to the right again. The hallway with the library in it should be about halfway down and to the left. All he had to do was keep going until I told him to stop. It took a little while, but we needed one of the smallest libraries up here if we wanted to be able to defend it. I wondered how many flares he had. The one I was holding should last a little longer, long enough to get us to the library, but not much more than that. 

When we got to the library, Dean told me to look in his bag for a flash grenade. I asked if I could throw it, and he flashed a brief smile before telling me to go for it, so after I found one, I pulled the pin and let it roll from my fingers through the door. We took cover out in the hallway, and . . . it must’ve been a super-charged flash grenade too, because when it went off, the daevas screamed and made a hasty retreat from every corner of the room. 

Before the light had completely died down from the grenade, Dean brought me into the room, laid me on a table, and started throwing books and scrolls on the floor just inside the doorway before he took the flare and threw it into the pile to set it on fire. Should keep them out now for now. I didn’t think Raphael could suck up the light from something like fire. 

Coming back to me, Dean lifted my shirt to assess the damage and bit his bottom lip in thought before putting my shirt back down, so he could come up with a plan. I knew it was bad, and I guess he did too now that he’d seen it. “Don’t even think about usin’ that Blade Runner quote this time. It’s only funny when . . .” 

He let his sentence fall away, so I finished it for him. “When you know I’m not going to die? Personal favorite is ‘It’s just a flesh wound,’ but you didn’t respond the last time I said it.” 

Surprisingly, Dean decided to play along. He skipped a few lines ahead and said, “What’re you going to bleed on me?” 

_Already have . . . enough for one lifetime, I suspect._ “I’m invincible!” 

Dean smiled and said, “You’re a looney.” 

“Well, not yet . . . I’m working on it . . . haven’t let my emotions completely go . . . can’t feel anything about what I remember from up here yet.” 

His smile reluctantly fell while he ducked his head. “You think that’ll happen . . . you know once we get out of here?” 

I held my breath as pain shot through me and then slowly exhaled to try and get it back under control before I said, “I hope so . . . I think if anyone is due a complete and utter meltdown . . . it’s me. Kinda looking forward to it. Might make me normal for a change.” 

He looked like he wasn’t expecting me to say that and smiled briefly before saying, “Well, as long as you’re okay with it.” Looking back down at my stomach, he got a little more serious and added, “Okay, I need you to stop blocking me from this.” 

_He wants to try and heal me on his own?_ “I’m not doing it on purpose. It’s sort of an automatic reflex I’m doing without realizing it now . . . I think that looking at it from an outsider’s perspective shone a light on how absolutely insane it was for me to let you do that for me. I mean it’s crazy. Why would I ever let you or anyone else take something like that on for me if I can stop you from being able to do it?” 

He leaned forward on the table and said, “Because you promised.” 

_Some promises should be broken._ “I know I did. It doesn’t mean that I should have.” 

He gave me a defiant look that reminded me of Rogue and said, “You know I can unblock you, right?” 

“Yeah . . . you can. You’ll always be able to trump me on it if it’s what you want. Doesn’t mean I can’t try to keep us both from being brought down by this.” 

Dean ignored my challenge, turned to throw some more things on the fire and came back saying, “Think you can keep anything from getting in that door?” 

_I hope so, because he looks like he’s serious about this._ “I’ll try for as long as I’m able . . . I really don’t think my reaper can make it here with the daevas out there, so you have a little time.” 

He moved around to climb up on the table and lay next to me before he grabbed my hand. “I’ve gotta know. What did I do? I can’t remember it. I can’t remember a lot these days . . . just –“ 

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Dean. You were honest. There’s nothing wrong with that.” 

He rolled his head to the side to look at me and said, “I have to know . . . Did I tell you I didn’t want you? Because if I did . . . I didn’t mean it.” 

_Yeah, he did._ “Yeah, you say that now that I can –“ 

“It has nothing to do with you remembering me or not. I wouldn’t be here if I’d meant it.” 

“Half of it was what you said and half of it was what you felt.” Before he could ask me what I meant, I said, “You kissed me, and it made you realize you didn’t want me, I guess . . . That’s the way you felt anyway.“ I paused to take a deep breath before I looked up at the ceiling and added, “You said it didn’t feel right being with me and that if you started anything with me, it’d be like you were ready to move on, and you weren’t. You didn’t think you’d ever be able to let go of what we had. I said we could make new memories, and you said that I was right the first night I tried to take off . . . about it being too hard for you to be around me . . . You said I looked like her and I almost acted like her, but I wasn’t her, and you wanted her.” 

He exhaled a sad laugh that didn’t hold any humor while he looked up at the ceiling and shook his head. “Least you know you don’t have to worry about me going anywhere else if I won’t even cheat on you with you. “ 

“I get it . . . You finally saw me for what I am instead of some idea you have built up in your head about –“ 

He rolled to face me and said, “If that’s what you think, than no, you don’t get it.” 

_I get it better than you want me to get it._ “Yeah, I do . . . You didn’t need me to take you to a Zeppelin concert . . . You needed me to remember the first time we had a night out together . . . You didn’t need me to start fixing all the massive problems at the South Dakota camp . . . You needed me to remember helping you build the Wisconsin camp . . . You didn’t need me to save Rogue from the Alpha Changeling . . . You needed me to remember the night we made her . . . What I had to offer wasn’t good enough, because me on my own isn’t good enough . . . You’re not the only one . . . Nobody else thought I was good enough either, and that’s okay . . . I’m a hurricane on two legs that destroys everyone in my path . . . I’m glad I’m so easy to walk away from . . . maybe one of these days it’ll stick . . . for your sake.” 

I heard him mutter, “Think I messed things up worse than I thought I did, ” so I shook my head. 

“No, you didn’t . . . You were just honest with yourself for a change . . . You didn’t do anything–“ 

He finally had enough and said, “Just shut up, so I can fix you and start showing you that you’re wrong,“ before he rolled onto his back and added, “Don’t use the Celox. It’ll keep me from being able to close you up.” 

_Good luck getting past my blocking you. I’m still not planning on making it easy for you._ Just in case this worked, I said, “Fix what you can . . . just stay out of my head,” and with that Dean just sort of passed out and blood started pouring out of him. 


	46. Incoming

Sam had been in Heaven for a week even though it felt longer and shorter than that at the same time, and now he’d been down here at Bobby’s for 2 weeks. He felt like he was in a holding pattern, waiting to hear from Dean or Beth or Cas or Gabriel or Balthazar . . . anybody on what was going on in Heaven. Why was it taking them so long? 

Sam’s attention shifted to his niece. She was crawling around the feet of the teenagers that were supposed to be getting a lesson from him on history. He taught a few classes in the school. Nobody else was here to do it. Most of the kids told him he should make it more fun the way Beth made science fun. Hard to make it fun when your mind is on other things. All he really wanted to do was go back to the door to Heaven, but Gadreel told him if he tried, he’d be there waiting for him and would bring him straight back. Apparently, Gadreel didn’t want to disappoint Gabriel, and Gabriel told him to keep Sam out of Heaven. 

Sam had called Bobby to see if Bobby knew anything about Gadreel when he first got back to the camp, and Bobby had said he didn’t, but he had some lore books in a basement at one of his old safe houses not far from the Wisconsin camp, so he’d checked those out and told Sam a little more about Gadreel a week later. If what Bobby found was true, Gadreel was the angel that let Lucifer into the Garden of Eden. Which . . . well, it sucked that Gadreel had been locked up for something like that when Lucifer was the one that did whatever he did when he got into the Garden, but also because Gadreel couldn’t have done anything to stop Lucifer from getting in even if he had been paying attention. Lucifer was an archangel. Gadreel wasn’t. 

Sam could’ve banished Gadreel to get him out of the way, but now he felt sorry for the angel. Besides Gabriel had also said he was sending Gadreel to help protect the camp. What if Sam banished Gadreel, and it left the camp totally exposed to whatever Gabriel thought might attack the camp? Sam felt next to useless with less than half his body working . . . For now it looked like he was stuck with Gadreel, and Gadreel wouldn’t let Sam out of his sight.

Gadriel was in this classroom right this second watching and Sam guessed learning about the French invasion of Russia in 1812. He never learned much about it when he was in school, because well, he wasn’t sure why. Either the school they moved to didn’t have it in the curriculum or he missed out on it when he went from one school to the other. Most of the schools he went to focused on the War of 1812 here in the U.S. 

Carrie was standing against the wall in the back too. She hadn’t gone on any real hunts yet even though that was why she came to this camp. Sam figured she was waiting for Beth to get back before she did. She’d stayed to help Jody with the kids, because she thought it’s what Beth needed her to do and because she thought it was what Adam would’ve wanted her to do. But now that she and the rest of them knew that Beth had her memories back, Sam thought she had that look about her that said she had to get out of here. He’d seen that look on Dean enough times, so it was one he recognized. 

It looked like she would be another one to add to the growing list of people that wanted to hunt with Beth. Meg and the Amazons had come back a week ago and were sticking around to wait for Beth and Dean to get back too. Dean would love that. Life on the road with Sam and 5 women . . . 6 if you counted Dean’s daughter. Dean would have the Metallica and ACDC blasting to counteract all the feminine vibes; not that any of them were the type to go out and start spraying the Impala down with flower perfume. Just the thought of what Dean’s reaction to that would be, made Sam have to contain a grin and cover his laugh with a cough while he turned to face the chalkboard . . . the kids probably caught it. They already thought he was weird. What was him breaking out into a sponatneous fit of laughter in the middle of a lesson on war going to do to change that? Nothing. It’d just confirm it to them. That or it’d confirm that he was cracking up without his brother here . . . He felt like he was.

When the class was over, Sam put the game of Risk he’d brought out as a teaching aid away and went to grab his niece, who was trying to crawl out the door with the other kids. Sam wasn’t even sure how he was going to tell Dean that he’d missed her first word. When Sam had gotten back here, she’d looked at the door behind him expecting to see Dean and had said, “Dada.” 

That first time, Sam had thought he’d miss heard it, but every time someone came into the house now, she looked at the door expectantly and said it. Then she looked sad when she saw that it wasn’t Dean. Everytime Sam heard it, he felt worse. It was something that Dean should be experiencing. Maybe he wouldn’t tell Dean when Dean came back. Maybe he’d let Dean hear it and think it was the first time she said it, because he knew Dean didn’t want to miss the big milestones in his daughter’s life. 

Gadreel out of nowhere asked, “How do you know what the right thing to do is?” Sam wasn’t expecting it. How do you answer something like that? It was one of those meaning of life questions, but taking the time to answer it for an angel was probably important. Sam didn’t want to go to hunter training yet anyway. Carrie, Meg, and the Amazons could handle getting it started without him. 

“Uh, well . . . it’s not as easy as it sounds. It should be. For most people it is, but I think sometimes if you touch darkness enough times, it rubs off on you, so the lines between right and wrong become . . . hazy . . . I think usually, it’s best to ask yourself if it hurts other people or not. It could be emotionally or physically. If it does, than you shouldn’t do it. There are circumstances where that doesn’t apply, like if someone is going to hurt someone else, than you should stop them if you can, or you’re as much to blame as the one who hurts them,” Sam answered while he watched Gadreel to see if any of that sunk in. Gadreel was odd. Cas had been weird when he first got here, but he’d been . . . more sure of himself and his mission and of what was right and wrong. Gadreel had been locked up for thousands of years and the only socializing he’d ever had was with his prison guards. 

Answering Sam’s thoughts, which Sam didn’t really like, Gadreel said, “I also spoke to another angel in the cell next to mine, but he did not make it out of the prison when we left. There was a human girl I was imprisoned with in Heaven. I met her once. I spoke to her then. I socialized more than you think.” 

Beth. Why did everything keep coming back to her? Sometimes Sam wished he’d had a chance to see that TV show of their lives to see what it would’ve been like without her. “How did she meet you?” 

“She was looking for someone . . . another human that may have been locked in a cell the way she was. She’d never met him, but she’d read about him. Such was her disappointment that he was not there, she could not find it in her to run from prison security. I saw her sitting in the hall waiting for them while they rounded up the others, so I talked with her then. I did not understand how a human that was so . . . innocent could receive the same fate as I. I did not understand why the other angels had taken half of her soul. If I was sent to prison for having left my post unguarded for a few minutes . . . how were the angels that did that to her allowed to go free? More angels knew of her and what happened to her than you think, and they did nothing. That is wrong, correct?” 

Sam nodded and was going to ask another question, but Gadreel said, “She was 12 when I met her. They waited another 8 years for the angels that guard Hell to begin branding their names on her soul . . . everyone in the prison . . . prisoner and guard alike knew what was happening. There were spectators from outside the prison at these events. The Guards of Hell were given the opportunity to do their worst on something that was pure. In doing so, they signed Raphael’s contract . . . to mark an innocent and have her retain all of that pain in a way that demons cannot . . . it is a powerful message to send . . . a sign of true devotion . . . and it carries a heavy weight on the bearer of such a contract . . . it goes beyond bad magic.” 

Sam didn’t understand why Gadreel was saying any of this to him. “That contract came due not long after we left Heaven, Sam . . . the armies from Hell that were contracted to work with Raphael have decimated Heaven . . . I can still hear the screams of my brothers and sisters although most have gone quiet. Is it wrong to let them die without fighting for them or am I supposed to abandon my post of keeping watch over you to see if any might be saved when I am unsure they are worth being saved?” Gadreel asked. 

That was an easy one for Sam. Screw the angels except for Cas and Gabriel. Dean and Beth were both up there, and if the angels were being wiped out or had been wiped out . . . he had to go back. Why didn’t Gadreel say anything until now . . . was it because it was too late? 

“I do not know if it is too late for your brother or Beth. I only know that there is one in Heaven that will not and has not been touched . . . Raphael even had the daevas and demons he unleashed attack his own angels.” 

Why would Raphael do that? He still wanted to start over again and thought he could do a better job than God. Raphael didn’t have the means to kill God with the tablets, but it didn’t mean he couldn’t start again the way he wanted if he cleaned house of every angel and soul . . . that meant . . . Sam stood up quickly and went with his niece to the house, but he didn’t need to look for Missouri, because she was already heading towards him. “You shoulda said somethin’ sooner,” Missouri said pointing at Gadreel, before she had Sam turn back around to go back into the school. 

Missouri tried. She really did, but nothing was coming through. Not a peep. They stayed out there for a good hour trying to get anyone they knew that was dead to come through. Sam started to feel the panic set in . . . what if they’d all been wiped out along with the angels. Maybe they were hiding out and not wanting to give away their position, but . . . it wasn’t looking good. He may have really lost his chance to see Adam or his Mom or Dad or Jess again, and that’s what he’d been working towards. What about Dean? If Dean died did that mean his soul was lost too? Sam looked down at his niece. What if that army was set loose on Earth? If it took out Heaven, Earth had to be next.

What about the kids that were in the cabins? This wasn’t really the place for them. Walls hadn’t been in the plans, but he hadn’t been expecting an army so powerful that it could defeat every angel in Heaven. He needed to get those kids somewhere that had strong and sturdy walls . . . not Kansas. Raphael knew about Kansas or Metatron said he did even if Raphael and Michael didn’t attack the way he said they would. 

They had to go to Wisconsin, and Kevin needed to go back to the demon tablet. They’d gotten a lot more on angels in the last month . . . If the angels were no more, they needed to know how to keep the daevas out . . . and ward against whatever else Raphael had conjured up from Hell. 

Sam asked Missouri if she could call Bobby and let him know they were heading that way and to have Jody call Kansas to tell them to take shelter in the bunker. This wasn’t a drill. He went to go get the kids and tell them to pack up and hit the trucks. Then he got on the radios and called the hunters. They needed to know where to go, and he needed more people he knew could fight. 

Sam had the place evacuated and ready to go within 30 minutes. They needed to do a final walk through and make sure nobody got left behind. That’s what he was in the middle of doing when the dogs started to lose it in the back of one of the trucks . . . around the same time the hair on the back of Sam’s neck felt like it was standing on end. He knew what that feeling meant. It was one a good hunter knows and trusts and hones over time. They should’ve gotten out of here sooner, cuz now they couldn’t leave. Not if it meant what he thought it did.


	47. Daddy's Little Girl

“Dean what are you doing?” Something felt wrong. I’d been healed a while ago, and he still wasn’t back. I felt probably less alone than I had my entire life even though I was in a library surrounded by daevas, with a dead-like Dean on a table in front of me, and no way of reaching the rest of my family if most of them were even still alive. I thought that might mean one thing. “Did you break on through to the other side, Dean?” I waited for some kind of response and all I got was a feeling of guilt. I had nothing to feel guilty about. “Dean Winchester . . . Get out of my soul.” Now I felt stubborn. I did have something to feel stubborn about, but that wasn’t coming from me either.

“Castiel . . . if you’re still alive, I could use your help. I’m in the music library not far from the chapel. Dean’s in my soul, and he won’t get out. His body is passed out, and I don’t know how to get him out of here if something comes for us that I can’t defend against.“ 

I waited about 10 minutes and was in the middle of pacing away from the door when I heard,  
“How long has he been in there?”

Stopping to look behind me, I felt a great sense of relief when I saw a bruised and bleeding, but very bright Cas slumped against the doorway. He was still alive. It took about 10 seconds for him to build up enough energy to walk through the edge of the flames and make it into the room, so he could stop shining to keep the daevas at bay, but he was alive. _Maybe we should have warded this room._

Cas walked up to look at Dean on the table and said, “Warding the room would have been wise, but I suspect with all the blood there hadn’t been much time . . . has he been in there long?” I didn’t know. 

“He’s been out for about 20 minutes. He healed me after 5, and he’s been knocked out ever since. I don’t know when he found a way to my side or what he’s doing . . . I know that you couldn’t communicate with me, while I was in limbo, but now –“

“I have part of your soul, so maybe I could join him and communicate your wishes for him to leave?”

“More than communicate them. I’ve already done that. I want you to drag him out. I don’t know what he’s doing, but I’d feel a whole lot better if it wasn’t what I think it is. I don’t want him snooping into my backstory. It’s kind of private, and I haven’t had a chance to deal with it myself yet.”

 _What the fuck are they doing in there?_ Cas had been sprawled out on the table next to Dean for a while now. _Seriously, any time you want to get the fuck out of my soul, so we can find Gabriel and get the fuck out of Heaven . . . let me know . . . or don’t . . . stay in there and I’ll just carry the two of you out in me . . . I’ll leave your bodies here. It’d be a hell of lot easier for me to do than trying to carry them out, and we can have time-share space with my body. I get the weekends. Cas can have Monday and Tuesday, and Dean can have Wednesday and Thursday. We’ll flip for Fridays._

I felt mirth coming from inside of me after I thought that. It was the last thing I would feel under the circumstances, so it must be coming from one of them. I was about to tell them I wasn’t kidding and would leave in the next 2 minutes when the world felt like it tilted on its side, and I ended up on the floor. Seconds later, I was back in my cell. 

_Adriel, I despise you. You think that pinning me to the rack with knives is bad? It is not. I have seen the best torturers there are, and you are not one of them just because you think that they have taught you a thing or two. What do you have planned this time? A belt? Seems kind of mundane. Oh, you’ve made modifications with some kind of thorny wire to it. I am not impressed. You can try to break me all you like, and I won’t . . . And boy did he try. I think I’d give him a B for effort . . . then there was the salt he rubbed into the wounds. Might’ve bumped it up to a B+ for effort. Well, it could be an A+ and I still wouldn’t have stayed in this cell . . . and he’s dead. I killed him a little while ago._

As soon as I thought that about him being dead, I came to and found myself drenched in sweat and panting on the floor. It was a weird dichotomy. I experienced it like I was there and thought of things the way I had then. I’d been detached from it in my head, but in actuality, my body was shaking, and my heart was pounding in my chest. There’s always been a weird disconnect from how I thought about things and how I felt about them, and it really seemed to be manifesting itself at the moment. 

_Okay, guys. You made your point . . . there’s bad stuff going on in there. You can come back now. My body doesn’t like what you’re doing._ I waited 5 minutes, and they were both still non-responsive out here in the real world. _If you aren’t out here in 10 minutes, I’m telling Gabriel. I’ll let him deal with the two of you._ Again I felt amusement coming from inside of me after I thought that. I didn’t think it was fucking funny. I’m glad one of them did.

I started ticking off the seconds in my head on my way to 600. To keep myself occupied, I threw some more things onto the fire to keep it going. Those daevas were still waiting in the hall for a chance to get back in here. I also kept an ear out for anything that may have been alerted to our presence by the light from our fire, but didn’t hear anything. 

At about the 7-minute mark of my threat, I had to lean against the table as I experienced two more interconnecting memories. This time I was a little younger than in the last one. It would’ve been six months or a year before Kushiel made his visit. This one was bad. It wasn’t bad for me. I’d broken out a few months before that, and Thaddeus had a chance to torture me. He mostly stuck with torturing the angel prisoners, but sometimes he rotated in with the others. 

After he was done, Zadkiel came in when the others had gone and sat with me for a while. He didn’t say anything. I think he was waiting for me to think something that he could pick up, but I never did. Before leaving, he cut the straps that were tying me down and went over to the bricks he must’ve known I used to hide my tunnel before pulling them away for me. “Go. I know it will be a struggle, but I will keep the others preoccupied until you get into the tunnel. Then I will cover it over for you again to keep you from having to exert more energy . . . I do not want to see you here again.” He left, and I struggled with the injuries I’d sustained, but managed to get off the table and into the tunnel, and he did come back and cover it back over for me even though I was hiding just inside of it. Then he left the door ajar on his way out, so it looked like I went out the door. 

That was the backdrop to the main memory I had. It’s what made the main memory so bad, because he did see me there again. It wasn’t for a while, a lot longer than it normally took for me to get caught, but this time when I was caught, I wasn’t the one that was tortured. Zadkiel was. 

He’d been imprisoned as soon as I escaped, because he told them that he ‘accidentally’ left the door open, but they didn’t hurt him until I was caught. They just kept him locked up in one of the cells until I was brought back to my cell. Then they brought him in and made me watch what they did to him, and he didn’t break once. He never told them about my tunnel, and he never shifted the blame onto me by saying that I’d broken out of the cell. He kept claiming responsibility for all of it.

_‘Zadkiel? Can you hear me?’ I don’t want them to know what I’m thinking, but I have to try and reach him. ‘Tell them Zadkiel. Please. Don’t do this for me. Tell them.’ He just looked at me. The others haven’t. Does he know what I thought? This has been going on for a very long time. Every time I open my mouth to say something, he shakes his head and does not want me to say anything on his behalf. I do not know what to do. This is horrific. I have to stop this. Why have I let him take the blame for me for so long?_

_‘Zadkiel, I am sorry that I have been a coward. I was not prepared for them to do something like this to someone else. I am sorry I have taken this long to speak up. I will end this. It is not right.’ I open my mouth again to tell them that it was me . . . to tell them about the tunnel . . . to say anything that will end this._

_Zadkiel shakes his head at me again and looks me in the eyes. “For being apart of this, I deserve much worse.” Thaddeus is looking at me now. He thinks that what Zadkiel said is funny. He does not see Zadkiel get free of his bindings, but he does notice when Zadkiel takes his angel blade from him. I can see where this is going, so finally say, “Stop. Zadkiel. Please. I forgive you. Don’t-“_

_I am unable to stop him from plunging the angel blade into his chest. There is a bright light. I have to close my eyes. When I open them, Thaddeus is surprised, but not sorry. Neither are any of the others. They had not intended to kill him, but they are not sorry he is dead or that they made him suffer. And this is my fault. He helped me, and I was caught. I did not tell them about my tunnel. He died because of me. I feel destroyed in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. They may think they have won because of my reaction, but they have not. Nobody has won this round. He died because of me but also for me. I will never let anyone or anything die for me again._

When I woke up, I was breathing heavily again and had tears rolling down my cheeks. I needed for them to stop this. _Gabriel? I need you. Dean and Cas . . . they’re making me relive my torture memories on purpose. Please help me. I’m in the small music library._

I paced while I waited. He wasn’t answering. _What if he’ dead? No, Gabriel can’t be dead._ I felt so small. I needed my Dad. I couldn’t stop crying. I felt powerless and alone. I could go in there and kick them out, but what about keeping all of us safe? 

_You guys need to stop. Every time you do that, I lose consciousness. There’s nobody out here to keep the three of us safe when it happens._ I threw more things on the fire. Nobody in Heaven would be around to play or sing the music ever again. What if we were the only three left up here that weren’t demonic angels, daevas, full-blooded demons, or Raphael?

I had some warning on the next memory, but this one was bad. I knew it was bad, because it made me feel physically sick and brought me to my knees before I even remembered it. I didn’t want them to make me remember this one. _Not this one. Leave this one alone. Don’t make me remember this one, Dean._

5 seconds later, the bottom completely dropped out from under me. I couldn’t stop the things that were flashing through my memory . . . _Puriel . . . oh shit . . . no, no, no, no . . . don’t remember that . . . I can’t stop it._ I couldn’t stop the gruesomely vivid memory of me being slowly quartered before my torso was sliced open so I could see my insides. 

_I can’t put myself together. My arms and legs are leaning against the wall . . . How am I supposed to get my arms and legs back? I’ll carefully slip off the rack and get them . . . but I can’t untie myself without any arms . . . and if I slipped out from under the straps, then all my insides will be damaged because of how tight the straps are, or I’ll fall on the floor, and they’ll fall out . . . How am I supposed to get out of this . . . Why did they do this? I didn’t even do anything this time? I was just recovering from the last time. How long am I going to be like this? Is this it? Is this all I’ll have forever . . . my arms are right there . . . If I had arms I could reach them . . . I can see my heart pounding and my lungs breathing . . . wait . . . Where are they going? They can’t leave me like this . . . don’t leave me in the dark like this . . . It’ll drive me crazy. I need my arms and legs. I need my body closed up. I need help. Please help me._

I vaguely heard Gabriel when he held my head in his hands to try and get me to look at him as he knelt in front of me. “Beth . . . I made it.” 

I felt tears streaming down my face and couldn’t breathe, but somehow choked out, “Can you see it? What I’m remembering?” He looked like a combination of heartsick and pissed off while he nodded, so I said, “Make it stop, Dad.” 

He pulled me against his chest and rocked me, while he cradled my head with one of his hands and tried to get me to calm down by rubbing my back with the other, like he used to do when I was little and had a nightmare. He told me to remember it was in the past and kept repeating it until I calmed down. When my full blown sobbing turned into a somewhat more subdued crying, he reached behind me with one of his hands, so he could touch Castiel’s leg, and Castiel woke up. I didn’t even know what they said. Either I was so out of it that I couldn’t comprehend it, or they were talking to each other over angel radio. 

“Castiel is going to go back and drag Dean out. If he doesn’t, I’ll pull him back out and smite him, okay?” I nodded into his chest. He always took care of things for me. 

After Castiel went back in, I whispered, “I’m sorry I was bad and killed Heaven.” 

Keeping me bundled up in his arms, Dad said, “There are more of us still standing than you think. We just need to move the fight downstairs now.” 

_Is it spilling out onto Earth?_

He paused when Dean and Castiel came back and stopped whatever they were going to say with a look over my shoulder before he whispered, so only I could hear, “That’s my girl. Keep thinking of what you have to do next, and you’ll get through what’s going on inside of you . . . don’t stop moving is one of your mottos, right?” 

I nodded. It was something I’d always done. I did it when he was raising me and later when I became a hunter, and it was something I did after Castiel took my memories of Dean, so I could function. “Is that why your memories look like they’ve been duct taped back together? You had all of your memories of Dean taken and given back to you?” 

_Yes. They were taken the day Rogue was born. I didn’t even get to see her until over 3 months later, because I was in Hell . . . He did it, because Dean left me and said if I tried to find him, he’d destroy the part of his soul that felt anything for me, so it’d happen to my soul. After I came back, Dean tried, but he didn’t want me anymore if I couldn’t remember him. I didn’t get my memories back until just before we came up here. It’s why I said it’s been a trying year._

Dad sighed in frustration and petted the back of my head, while he whispered again so only I could hear, “I think it’s time I finally meet your daughter. I’m going to be staying with you for a while.” 

I clung to him a little tighter. _You promise?_ He nodded, so I thought, “ _Do I still have to have a lecture?”_

He sounded like he was smiling when he said, “How about we get plans moving on what we’re going to do about the war spilling over onto Earth, and then we’ll see.” 

_To make sure I don’t go looney tunes?_

“Are you only going to think things and not talk for a while?” I nodded, so he replied, “You used to do that when you were little and something upset you . . . I don’t know how you never figured out that I shouldn’t be able to hear you.” 

_Probably the same way I never figured out you shouldn’t be able to find me anywhere at any time no matter where I was. You were my Dad. It’s just the way it was._

“You can have your lecture after I’m sure you aren’t going to go looney tunes, but I’d say you could have it right now, cuz I think you’re going to be fine.”

 _I guess I always am._

“No, you’re not . . . and it’s okay if you’re not. That’s why you have me to help you pick up the pieces.” 

I don’t know how long it was, but when he was sure I was going to be okay, he stopped trying to soothe me and helped me get up. He must’ve already told Castiel how they were going to get us out of there, because Castiel took Dean in front of us, and lit the way to keep the daevas away while Gabriel had me walk in front of him and brightened the hall behind us. I couldn’t even look at Castiel or Dean or bring myself to call Castiel, Cas, for that matter. I didn’t know what to think or feel about them. I knew they must’ve had some reason for doing it, but I’d told them both not to do it, and they’d done it anyway. 

I didn’t know how to act around them now. How do you act around people that have seen you cut into fifths and sliced open? If I saw it, they had to have seen it, right? Is that how it worked? Gabriel came up to me as we neared the elevator and said, “Come on . . . start thinking about what we need to do when we get down there.” 

_Right, focus on the task at hand._ In this instance the task was to get rid of whatever Raphael let out of Hell, and get rid of Raphael. _Any word on Michael?_

Gabriel cocked his head to the side before he and Cas shared a brief look, and Gabriel said, “Alive. He’s still in the chapel. He needs help. Cas and me are gonna go get him. You and Dean head down without us. Keep the flares going until you find out whether it’s day or night down there. If it’s night . . . get back in the elevator and stay there with the flares you have left. Don’t come back up here. We’ll come down another way. If it’s day, wait for us outside.” 

_Okay. But –,/i >_

_“Just wait for us down there. If you want us to make it out, we can’t keep chasing after the two of you, and it’s still safer on Earth than up here. We won’t be long.” Yeah, but how long was ‘won’t be long’ for an angel._


	48. Returning from Battle

Dean glanced at Beth. This elevator felt a hell of a lot slower going down than it did when he and Sam used it to go up. She still wouldn’t look at him. He still stood by his decision. They got rid of two medium-to-small sized vines first and then found the mother of all vines after that. The walls had shaken really hard after that vine died. For a couple of minutes, he wondered if that was going to be it for all of them, and then Cas disappeared, and he didn’t know what the hell that meant, but Cas came back and told him he had to go, or Gabriel was going to smite Dean’s body, and he’d be stuck in Beth until she died, so Dean left. 

She was still standing and still Beth. It all worked out in the end . . . that’s what she always said so that’s what he was gonna go with here. “So, uh –“

Beth turned away from him and said, “I’m not talking to you.” 

_Okay. That’s a new one._ He had the feeling if he pushed it, they’d argue, because she couldn’t run off if they had to wait on Cas and Gabriel, and she didn’t look like she was just going to back down if he hurt her feelings or laugh at him, and those were her three go to methods of dealing with a confrontation with him . . . He should worry about the walls shaking in her soul the angrier she got with him, but she was strong enough to take it, so he said, “I did the right thing.” 

What he wasn’t expecting her to do, because it was something she’d never done before was wait 10 seconds, turn around, and kick him in the family jewels. The elevator doors opened, and she put herself between him and whatever might be waiting for them outside. It was morning, and nothing was there, so she tossed the flare on the ground and walked out of the elevator saying, “I had to hurt you to protect you. That means I did the right thing, right?” and left him doubled over and struggling to get to the door before it shut in his face. 

Giving her back a scathing look, he tried to stand up right when he got outside and said, “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.” That earned him a look before she turned her back on him to start setting up a perimeter. They needed to fix this now before things got worse. They couldn’t do that if she wasn’t going to argue with him or at least talk to him. Either was fine with him, but she had to say something after what he did. “You think you’re the only one that has shit you don’t want to remember? You were lucky . . . You got a normal life and Gabriel helped you forget everything that happened to you up there. And that’s another thing. If you don’t like something I do? Call me out on it. Don’t go running to Daddy every time you get pissed off.” 

She froze and turned to glare at him, but then something occurred to her, and she almost smirked at him before she turned around and kept walking. “You’re such a child, Beth. What are you just gonna ignore –“ 

Beth rounded on him unexpectedly and tackled him onto his back before she quickly scrambled over him to pin his hands. He could get out of it if he wanted to but it was kinda hot. She leaned down to be closer to him and spat out, “You want me to argue with you so you can feel absolved for what you did. I can feel the guilt pouring off of you, and you know what? You can wallow in it. I trusted you. I trusted Castiel. And you both betrayed me. The two of you have been arguing over which one of you gets to take the biggest pieces from me all year. Let me guess . . . you were arguing before you decided to turn my soul into some kind of a pissing contest . . . don’t pretend like you did it for me . . . and Gabriel . . . I needed his help, because I couldn’t stop you. You wouldn’t listen . . . just did whatever you wanted. No means no, Dean.” 

Maybe she was half right. He had been arguing with Cas, but that’s not why he did it, and maybe she was right about the guilt that’d started to sink in the second he woke up and saw the effect what he’d done had on her. He had his work cut out for him if she thought he and Cas betrayed her. Maybe he had messed up, but he’d done the right thing. 

“We did what needed to be done. You have no idea what’s growing inside of you, Beth. There were these vines . . . Cas said they were taking the place of the memories . . . like a –“ 

Her eyes narrowed. “So . . . despite what you just said about me not being above remembering things I don’t want to remember . . . I’m not allowed to deal with what I remember the same as anyone would?” 

_Uh, did I say that?_ “Not if it means –“ 

She leaned closer and whispered in his ear, “You didn’t happen to take a good hard look at your own soul, did you, Dean? Or was it too dark and twisty for you to see the vines in there?” 

He had that coming, and no he didn’t really get a chance to look. He didn’t think his had vines, because he . . . well he didn’t know. His soul built things different than hers did. And now all he wanted to do was flip her and see how far they could get before Gabriel and Cas came back, but that’d probably be a bad idea given the circumstances. 

“Did you see?” 

_Did I see what? That she’s turning me on in a big way? Yeah, I see that, or I feel it anyway. It’s been way too long . . . like almost a year kind of long. God, the things I’d do._

He cleared his throat and looked away from her. “I don’t know what we’re doing here, Beth.” 

She cocked her head to the side and said sarcastically, “What you wanted, Dean. We’re having a discussion . . . clearing the air. Did you see what you made me relive?” 

_Oh, that._ “No, I didn’t see anything. Cas got me out of those rooms before I could . . . had me shut my eyes if we weren’t fast enough before it started.” He had heard everything she was thinking in her head in the outside world though. Half of it was in English and half of it was in Enochian, and he could hear what the angels said to her, but he couldn’t understand what they were saying, and Cas wouldn’t translate. He could hear her screaming on the last one loud enough he couldn’t hear what she was thinking in the outside world, but it’d sounded like she was losing it, and Cas wouldn’t translate that either. All that was bad enough. He didn’t need to see it. 

She relaxed some and took a breath before she nodded. He had the feeling that’d been part of what her real problem was, and he felt himself relax some too . . . well, most of him did. He didn’t know how the hell she took anything he said seriously when he had a massive – 

She cut off what he was thinking by saying, “Because I’m not thinking about that at all.” She let him go, and he sat up, but she was still sitting on him, which didn’t really help the situation. 

She made him to look at her and said, “What you mean to me hasn’t changed . . . even forgetting you didn’t change that.” She still felt something for him. That was something to build on. He needed to start over again . . . for a third time. She took a deep breath and added, “But I don’t know what you want . . . I don’t –“ 

“Us . . . I never stopped wanting us.” 

She bit the inside of her cheek before she said, “Just me, then . . . I –“ 

“There was nothing wrong with you. Things were good when we were on the road, and then I don’t know what happened. I guess I just missed having . . . I don’t know . . . my friend. I needed her . . . I’ve been leaning on her since I got out of Hell, and I missed her. I just I didn’t know how much until I went back to Wisconsin . . . It wasn’t that I didn’t want you. I did, but it took years to build what we have. I didn’t know how to wait for you to catch up to me when I was years ahead of you.” 

She ducked her head and nodded before she said, “You’re going to have to work at it. I am too. You can’t give up if things don’t get back to the way you want them to be fast enough . . . if you really –“ 

He brushed her hair behind her ear and said, “I’ll play this any way you want. I still think I did the right thing . . . the way things were shaking in there . . . parts of the roof in your soul were caving in, Beth . . . if you remembered everything at once, the whole thing would’ve come down . . . but you’re not wrong to be pissed off about it.”

Beth ducked her head and nodded before getting off of him. He knew he’d always wanted her, but he never remembered needing to have her to the point that it hurt not to be with her. It’d been too long, and she was so hot . . . he thought she was still hot even when she forgot who he was, and now he still wanted her even though her clothes were covered in her blood . . . hell, his clothes were covered in his, but it didn’t seem to bother him. This was a whole other kind of torture he hadn’t been through, or maybe this is what it used to be like when he was trying to keep her from being connected to him, and he’d forgotten . . . or maybe it’s because now he knew what he was missing out on. How her body moved with his and the games they played and the hours long sessions they’d had. 

Why the fuck was he thinking about that now? Maybe because he hadn’t allowed himself to think it when she couldn’t remember him or when she was missing, and his body was kicking it into overdrive thinking it could make up for lost time now? Well, it couldn’t. Not yet. Not until she trusted him again. He could wait. He hoped it didn’t take too long, but he could wait. 

They were waiting hours, and Dean tried to keep his focus on the perimeter and making sure nothing was coming for them, but he spent as much time away from Beth as he could. He had to. “Seriously, Dean? Did you slip yourself a Viagra today or what?” Beth said after having been gracious enough to ignore it up to that point. 

“I can’t help it,” Dean exclaimed in frustration. 

“Well, I see it didn’t take long for it to kick in,” Gabriel’s voice sounded from near the doorway. Fuck. Dean should’ve known there was something angel-levels of wrong on this one. Gabriel cut off what Dean was going to say with a dark look. “My daughter will probably forgive you pretty easily. It’s the way she is with you . . . Castiel has a bit more work to do, but I’d say she’ll forgive him pretty fast too. That’s where I come in . . . I already let you get by with an awful lot concerning Beth. I think it’s time I step in, or you’ll never learn.” 

_Oh come on!_ “What the hell kind of point is that supposed to make?” Beth said pointing towards Dean’s crotch. _Stop pointing at it!_ Dean walked away and grabbed his bag to sling over his shoulder. That could help hide it for now. 

“It’s private. It’s painful. It’s embarrassing. It’s not something he wants you to see, and yet that decision has been taken from him. How does that feel, Dean?” 

Beth looked off to the side, while she thought about it and then nodded, like she thought that was a pretty good idea as she walked over to sit on the swings. “You know she already kicked me in the nuts earlier to prove a damn point. I think this is –“ 

Gabriel glowered, as he walked up to him. “This is what?” 

Dean didn’t back down as he said, “It’s overkill. What is it with you two and this . . . obsession with teaching me a lesson through my junk?” 

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe we think little Dean will get the lesson first.” 

_Ha fucking ha._ “Don’t you think you’re taking this Dad thing a little far?” Maybe his upstairs brain had shut down, because he shouldn’t have said that. Gabriel stayed the same height, but it felt like he was 1000 feet tall with the amount of anger and power emanating from him. 

Beth telling Gabriel to stop was probably the only thing that kept Gabriel in check, but it wasn’t because she didn’t want him to kill Dean. It was probably more because it reminded Gabriel he couldn’t kill Dean because of what it would do to Beth so long as they were both on Earth. Gabriel may kept his anger from getting worse, but the intensity of it stayed the same as he asked, “Did you hear her beg me to help her?” Dean ducked his head and nodded. “What did she call me?” _Dad._ “That’s right.” Dean sighed and Gabriel said, “I am her Dad. She thinks it. I know it. I told you before that she’s like the illegitimate daughter I never had.” 

Beth was watching them and said something in Enochian. It was like Gabriel shrunk back down to size and whatever he was going to say, Beth cut him off by saying something else in Enochian. _Why doesn’t she want me to know what she’s saying?_ Gabriel turned back towards Dean and said, “Because she doesn’t trust you anymore.” 

That was probably true, but it looked like Gabriel had said it to stall more than anything. Beth continued her interrogation of Gabriel in Enochian while she came over to them, and Gabriel answered her. Whatever they were talking about, Beth didn’t look too happy and then she stomped her foot and walked off saying something about Castiel . . . Dean got that part. 

“This is your fault,” Gabriel said before snapping his fingers to make Cas appear. Cas was standing next to them wearing some kind of a pink bunny costume. Gabriel went to go find Beth, and Dean asked with a laugh, “Did Michael really need your help, or did Gabriel say that, so he could turn you into the Easter bunny?” 

Cas’s eyes narrowed at Dean, as he said, “We did help Michael, but I was prevented from returning. I do not find it amusing . . . why are you perpetually aroused, Dean? Perhaps I should laugh at that.” 

Dean quickly stopped laughing. “So, uh . . . what lesson are you supposed to be learning?” 

“What it is like to be a fictional bringer of hope that does not hold up my end of the bargain. I have been giving children rotten chocolate for hours . . . there was a lot of crying . . . I still do not understand why a bunny would bring eggs.” Fit pretty well. Cas was sent in to help Beth and got sidetracked by doing the exact opposite of what she sent him in there to do. 

Cas caught him thinking that but pretended like he didn’t before Dean asked, “You got clothes to change into or uh . . . are we gonna be hunting Raphael with you in that pink costume?” 

Cas looked down at himself before responding, “I will have to borrow something of yours. Gabriel has also hidden my trench coat and suit from me for taking Beth’s memories.” Yeah, the trench coat was kind of Cas’s calling card . . . something that identified him . . . that fit too. Dean had a hooded sweatshirt Cas could borrow and some jeans. Jeans might be a little long on him, but it was better than having the Easter Bunny ride shotgun. 

Beth and Gabriel came back not long after that, and Gabriel snapped his fingers before they were standing outside of Bobby’s. _Not here!_ “Seriously, you have to get rid of it. I’ll look like a sex pest if I walk in sporting –“ 

Beth sighed and looked at Gabriel, so Gabriel snapped his fingers and things were restored to normal. Cas looked hopefully at Gabriel, but Gabriel didn’t do anything about his bunny costume, so Dean told him to come with him, and he’d get him something to wear. When they got around the corner of Bobby’s, all of them stopped dead in their tracks. 

None of them were expecting to see 20 or more semi-trucks picked up and tossed around the place, like they were matchbox cars. Beth ran towards the first one, and Dean was right there beside her. There were huge slashes down the sides and some blood on the rolling door in the back, but it was dented and smashed in, so they couldn’t get it up. Cas came and pulled the door off. It was empty. Dean didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. It depended on where everyone was. “We’ll search out here. Go and look in the house,” Gabriel directed as he and Cas started heading towards the next truck.

Dean and Beth both took off running towards the house. Dean shouted Sam’s name and Sam yelled back from the basement when they got closer. Dean was first down the stairs. Sam opened the panic room door for him, and Dean stopped as soon as he got a look inside. It was carnage. 

There were a lot of people in here . . . a lot of dead and dying people, but where was everybody else? _Where are all the kids?_ Sam looked like he was being held together with bandages. He was holding Rogue. She looked okay. The last thing Dean expected was for her to reach for him and say, “Dada.” 

_Did she just?_ Dean looked up at Sam, and Sam sighed before he said, “She’s been saying it the last couple of weeks . . . every time a door opens. She’s been looking for you.” _I missed my daughter’s first word?_ Dean took her from Sam. She didn’t seem fazed by all the death and blood in the room. 

Beth was tending to Carrie and glanced at him over her shoulder before she nodded her head towards the door. She didn’t want their daughter down here anymore, and it was safe upstairs for now . . . at least until dark. That’s when the daevas would come back. They had to be what did this, and Dean had to figure out how to stop them by tonight . . . if there was even anybody left. He thought Sam was supposed to have an angel on standby. Where the hell was he? And if the daevas hit this camp then what about the other camps?


	49. Body Count

Sam watched Beth working on Carrie. He didn’t think Carrie would make it. She had a massive gash across her side and had been bleeding out for too long. “Sam, I need you to go with Dean . . . He’ll take you to get healed by Cas or Gabriel. Send one of them to me, and then stay with Dean. He’s had a bad day . . . He needs your help,” Beth said before she rolled up her sleeve and went to her first aid kit he’d been fortunate enough to grab and bring down here with them. 

_What is she doing? Does she even know what blood type Carrie is? If Cas and Gabriel are still here, what’s the point?_

“Sam. Turn around. Go upstairs. Find Dean. He’ll know what to do when he sees you,” Beth said while she tied a tourniquet around her upper arm and glanced in his direction. He still didn’t understand why she would waste her blood on this if Cas and Gabriel were here. “Dean! I need you to come back and get, Sam,” Beth shouted up the stairs before she hooked the IV up to her arm and the other end into Carrie’s arm. _What?_

Sam looked up the stairs when Dean called him. When Sam didn’t move, Dean came back down and asked if he was all right. “Head wound. He needs to have one of the angels heal him, and I need one of them down here helping me as soon as possible,” Beth said over her shoulder. Dean took another good look at Sam and grabbed him gently by the upper arm to lead him up the stairs. 

“I don’t understand why she’s wasting her blood on Carrie if Cas and Gabriel are just going to heal Carrie,” Sam said when they got upstairs. He stumbled some, and Dean had to readjust Rogue in one arm, so he could wrap his other arm around Sam’s waist and guide him out the front door. 

“Cuz Carrie doesn’t have the time to wait for Cas to get to her. Beth’s buying her that time now,” Dean answered as they walked down the front steps of the porch. 

“Yeah, but Cas is fast.” 

“We’re not. Carrie wouldn’t make it if Beth had to wait for us to find Cas wherever he is out here in the yard.” Sam nodded slowly. That made sense. 

“Why didn’t she just say that?” 

“Did you ask her why she wasting her blood on Carrie while you were down there?” Sam didn’t know. He thought it a lot, but he didn’t know if he said it. 

“I don’t know.” 

Dean looked back at the house and said, “That’s probably why she wanted you gone. You never let the victims know how bad it is . . . she couldn’t exactly say it in a room full of ‘em.” Sam sighed. 

He guessed that was true, but still said, “Yeah, but I think they already know how bad it is. They’ve been watching the other ones die all night.” 

Dean gave him a worried expression before he said, “I know that, Sam, but uh, the ones doing the rescuing can’t let on that it’s bad.” 

Sam got confused. “Why’d Beth say I had a head wound if we’re not supposed to let everyone know how bad it is?” 

Dean responded, “She didn’t say it was bad. She was letting me know, so I could take it from there.”

“Why didn’t she just think it?” _Where are we going? Is Cas miles away?_

“She’s uh . . . she’s blocking me right now. Probably for the best until we get some things worked out.” _What happened now? Things were supposed to be getting better._ “Keep the questions comin’ Sammy. Keep talkin’. We’re almost there.” 

Sam tried to focus on something he’d wondered about and asked, “Why didn’t Beth just pray to Cas or Gabriel?” 

Steering Sam in another direction, Dean replied, “Maybe she tried. They’re busy out here looking for people. Maybe they didn’t answer, cuz they found some that needed more help.” Sam nodded. Everything Dean said made sense today. 

“Why’d Beth tell me you’d had a bad day? She said you needed me.” Dean looked at him and asked if she really said, so Sam nodded and almost toppled over until Dean caught him and kept him on his feet. 

Dean made sure Sam was all right and got them moving again before he said, “Well, uh . . . it feels like it was one, long, bad day. I started the war in Heaven. We didn’t know that Raphael’s army from Hell was gonna turn up . . . It started killing the angels on both sides. Beth got stabbed . . . had to go into my soul to save her. Might’ve overstayed my welcome . . . got down here and saw what this place looks like now . . . trucks are gone. Some of the cabins are gone. People are gone. Looks like daevas from Raphael’s army came here. I don’t know what happened in the other camps.” 

Sam was going to ask some more questions, like how Dean started the war or how he overstayed his welcome, and he wanted to tell Dean what happened here and with the other camps, but he got sidetracked and said, “Why is Cas in a pink bunny costume? Did I hit my head harder than I thought?” 

Dean glanced at Cas and grinned. “Yeah, you hit your head harder than you think, but Cas is really wearin’ that suit. Gabriel is trying to teach him a lesson.” Dean’s grin fell when they got close enough to see what Cas was doing. One of the cabins had collapsed. It was as flat as a pancake, and Cas was searching it to see if there were any survivors. “Think you could heal Sam? We’ll do this. Beth needs your help with some people that won’t make it if they aren’t healed soon. She’s in the basement,” Dean said steadying Sam to keep him from falling over when a new bout of vertigo hit. 

Cas turned and gave Dean a solemn nod before he touched his fingers to Sam’s forehead and disappeared. The fog that had been enveloping Sam’s mind and making it feel like he was thinking and moving through mud was lifted. That’s when what he saw in front of him really started to hit home. He moved quickly to begin lifting the boards at one of the corners of the cabin. 

“We tried to get out before it hit. Didn’t get enough warning from Gadreel. He wanted to know if it was right for him to stay here and let his brothers and sisters die without trying to help them, but he waited until almost all of them had gone quiet to tell me. Missouri couldn’t find Adam, Dad, Mom, Ellen, Jo . . . anybody. I mean nothing was coming through. I thought if whatever was happening in Heaven on the angel’s side made it’s way over to the human side, it’d probably head for Earth. Had everyone get in the trucks, so we could head to Wisconsin where there were some walls . . . Don’t think walls would’ve made much of a difference.”  
Dean put his hand on Sam’s shoulder to stop him, and Sam said, “I had the kids go to their cabins, Dean.” 

Dean took a deep breath. “I know, Sam. There was nowhere else to put ‘em. Some of the cabins had panic rooms. Maybe most of the kids went there.” 

Sam shook his head and looked around at the destruction while tears welled up in his eyes. He could already see body parts and blood on some of the boards in the pile of rubble in front of them. He knew Dean saw it too. “Take Rogue. I don’t want her out here. Keep her in the house, so she can be close to the panic room if somethin’ else comes . . . might be morning, but it’s not just daevas that got let out . . . don’t take her to the panic room until Beth gets the place cleaned up and throws some more wards on the walls . . . she knows a hell of a lot of things from the lore she read in Heaven.” 

Sam was about to disagree. This happened on his watch. Dean stopped him from arguing by handing him the baby. “It’d make my day a whole lot better if I knew she was safe in the house, and you’re the only one I trust to take her, Sam.” 

Sam took her, but he didn’t want to leave Dean to deal with this on his own. Dean had already had to deal with too many dying children. On the other hand, his niece didn’t need to see it. She’d already seen too much death, and she wasn’t even a year old yet. Sam could make himself leave Dean if it was for her, so he nodded to let Dean know he’d take care of her, and Dean waited to turn and face the cabin until he was sure Sam would go.

Sam protectively carried his niece back to the house. It was similar to the hold he’d had her in all night. He didn’t know how she’d walked away without a scratch, because she’d been with him the entire time. He’d started running to the trucks and opening up the back doors to get the kids out of them when the first daevas hit. He knew he got thrown around the place. He wasn’t really sure what happened after that. 

Sam remembered Carrie helping him get the truck doors open and getting the kids out of the trailers after the first truck rolled, but they weren’t fast enough. More started being tossed around after that. He could hear the kids in there screaming inside the trucks while the daevas tried to get inside. He’d had a flare at some point and used it to get close enough to open a door and then tried telling the kids to stay with him under the light of the flare until he could get them somewhere safe. 

The kids in the back of the truck were too far away from him to receive the benefit of the flare, and opening the door let the daevas in . . . they were getting clawed and scratched, so they were too scared to come to him, and he couldn’t leave the kids that were outside the truck to go in and get them. Then Carrie was there with a flash grenade and threw it in the truck while she yelled for the kids to close their eyes. 

She told Sam to get the kids that were outside the truck somewhere safe in their cabins while she went into the back of the truck to get the kids out. There were flashes like that in his mind that seemed so clear, but how he got from point A to point B or D was hazy. He moved a lot on instinct, and his body did things without him thinking about it. 

Sam got in the house and went to sit with Rogue on the couch in the living room while he pulled the Colt out of his waistband. He hadn’t been able to use it last night. There was nothing to use it on . . . you couldn’t shoot shadow demons, but if the other things in Raphael’s army were corporeal, he could shoot those. He’d be ready for that, and they still had plenty of ammo for it after the boxes and boxes of it that Crowley gave them. 

Sam didn’t think they used the Colt enough. He’d kept it with him after Dean left him at Bobby’s when the Croat virus was first breaking out. He hadn’t used it after that. He’d had his powers, so he hadn’t needed it. It was just good to have if the war ever broke out.

He found himself telling Rogue about how her Grandfather, Uncle, and Dad had worked together to kill Azazael using this gun. He’d been telling her about how Azazel had played a part in her family’s lives over the last week. He knew he probably shouldn’t. It’s what he’d given Beth a hard time for doing. Rogue was too young. But maybe she should know her family’s history. 

Maybe it also made him proud of his family, because they’d overcome so much, and him telling her about it let him relive it from that perspective instead of from the one where he wished he wasn’t a part of his family or wished he’d had a different life growing up. Now he understood how much both of those things really meant to him, and he wanted to share that with her, so she could be proud of her heritage. 

“Sam . . . where do you want us?” Sam looked up and saw Carrie, Meg, and Abbey standing there. Cameron was dead. Sam remembered her dying trying to help a kid. The Doctor didn’t make it either. The one upside to Cameron dying was that she was a monster, and as far as he knew, the daevas and whatever else had been unleashed from Hell couldn’t make it to Purgatory, so she was better off there than Heaven. 

It was still a shame. Sam liked she and Abbey. They’d had really bad lives and still wanted to help fight the evil that was out there. Abbey was holding Cameron’s daughter, so at least she’d made it, but he knew it wasn’t the same as Abbey having her sister.

“Beth doesn’t have anything for you to -“ 

Abbey cut him off. “She said she and the angel will deal with what’s left to be done in the basement. She sent us to you or Dean to find out where we are needed.” Sam nodded while he handed his niece a stuffed tiger he had in his pocket. It was small, so it fit without being noticed. It was the only toy out of all the toys he’d picked up for her on that changeling hunt that his niece decided she didn’t mind holding, and now it seemed like she liked it. 

“Did anyone else –“ 

Meg interrupted him that time. “She already sent the ones that are alive out to help look for more people after Clarence healed them.” _How’d I miss seeing them go outside and look for more survivors?_

“Uh, Dean’s outside at cabin 7 . . . It’s gone. I think he’s trying to find anyone that’s still alive, but it’s not looking good. He’ll want to pull the bodies out. Help him with that, and then I guess go on to the next one. We need to do a roll call and see who is alive, who needs healed, who is dead, and who might be missing.” 

Meg nodded and indicated that she wanted Abbey and Carrie to head on out without her. As soon as they were gone, she took a seat across from Sam in Bobby’s old chair and said, “You did the best you could, Sam. Everyone knows that.” 

_Why does everyone think I’m fragile today?_ “There are people out there that need your help more than I do, Meg. Maybe you should go help one of them,” Sam sniped before he wished he hadn’t. That wasn’t very nice. She was actually trying to be nice to him for a change. She’d been downstairs moments away from death not even half an hour ago . . . he hadn’t been able to do anything to help her or anybody else that got hurt. He hadn’t been able to keep the ones that died from dying and having their souls go to a Heaven where they’d probably been destroyed by whatever was up there. 

He’d passed the message about Michael’s vessels along to Adam through Missouri when he got here, but he hadn’t known to warn them about something like this. Right now the only thing he was clinging onto was the hope that maybe Adam and his Dad told everyone they knew to take cover, so none of them could be used to find them, and that’s why nobody was answering. They couldn’t be gone. There had to be some trace left of the people that had meant so much to him. There had to be some trace left of all the people he’d killed, directly or indirectly. What about the kids here that were supposed to be getting a second chance? Now they had no chance? How many of them were gone?

He should’ve had these people on lockdown after he got back from Heaven. Despite what Meg said, he hadn’t done the best he could. He may not have known that the Hell division of Raphael’s army had been brought into the fighting, but he knew the war was starting when he got down here, and he’d kept everyone going through their daily routines instead of working harder on their defenses or finding somewhere else that was safer for them. He hadn’t been proactive enough. People had died on his watch. More might still dying out there in the yard. The only thing he’d gotten right was getting everyone in Kansas into the bunker. 

“I dropped the ball, Meg. I knew the civil war was starting, and I did nothing to prepare us or any of the other camps for anything that might happen as a result of that.” _The walls in Wisconsin wouldn’t have helped them at all._

“You sent Gadreel to make sure that the Wisconsin camp was okay,” Meg tried. _Did I?_ Sam didn’t remember doing that. _What about the people here? This camp is inhabited almost exclusively by children. Surely I should’ve kept Gadreel here for them._ “We needed him here more.”

“There’s not much a dead angel can do. He was taking a beating. I figured you thought you could get him out of here during the attack and have him come back to help when it was over. Think you had your plan knocked outta your head at some point,” Meg said while she stood. “Anyway . . . just wanted to say that nobody blames you for this, and if they do . . . send them my way, and I’ll let them know what you were like when you did something truly awful.” 

Sam exhaled a silent laugh before he glanced up at Meg this time. _There it is._ Somehow her being snarky felt more natural than her trying to be nice. This was the first time she’d actually sought him out to talk to him since she’d been cured. Most of the time he was initiating conversation, because she didn’t want to be reminded of what they’d done together in Las Vegas. Whatever look he gave her, she didn’t like it. “Oh, God. Spare me the sentimental puppy dog eyes, Sam.” And with that, she walked out the door . . . She didn’t play nice, so he knew where he stood with her. The openness and honesty even when it wasn’t something he wanted to hear were something he needed, and he truly didn’t have any secrets with Meg. She’d seen him at his absolute worst. It’s why she hated him most of the time.

Sam went back to finishing up his story on how they killed Azazel. He left it on the happy ending. He didn’t want to get into what Rogue’s Dad had done to bring him back, so he could be apart of it. She was hungry, so he went and mashed up some tinned peas for her. Those seemed to be her favorite at the moment. When they were done with that, he went and changed her clothes, because she’d made a mess with her food. 

Jules came up to him to see what he was doing. He’d been banged up too. He had some gauze wrapped around a couple of his legs, and he had some stitches across his shoulders. Sam wondered who had done that. That dog watched over Rogue almost as well as Sam did, so he wasn’t surprised to see him, and the baby started squealing and reaching for the dog when she saw him, so Sam let her pet him for a couple of minutes before he decided to go down and see what Cas and Beth needed help finishing. 

He covered his niece’s eyes with his hand in the event there were things down here she still shouldn’t see. Guess it was already too late for that, because she’d been down there with him all night, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t at least try to shield it from her some now. When he got to the bottom step and made his way into the bunker, he was surprised. 

There were no bodies down here. There wasn’t blood everywhere either. Either Beth or Cas had scrubbed the place clean. Maybe they’d done it together. Looking around, there were new sigils up and the older ones had been repainted. It looked like Beth’s handwriting had done some, and Cas’s had done others that were up near the devil’s trap at the top of the room. Sam wondered what some of them warded against. 

He wanted a brand new course that Beth could teach on lore for wards and spells. He’d be the first one to sign up for her class. Maybe she could start up one on Enochian too . . . If there were any kids left to take classes. He sighed. He was trying to distance himself or maybe prepare himself for what he found when he went back up the steps and saw the body count start to rise. He was also stalling, because he really didn’t want to go back upstairs and explain to Dean that Cas and Beth had done it again. 

They’d left Cas’s pink bunny costume sitting on the desk in the back with a note laying on top of it that said, _’Cas says thanks for letting him borrow your sweatshirt and jeans, Dean. He found an old pair of boots that fit. We couldn’t very well meet Crowley with him looking like the Easter bunny. We need to end this. I’m going to help him. I’ll pray to Gabriel and let him know where we’re going after Cas lets me in on it.– Beth._

Yeah, Sam wasn’t looking forward to being the one to pass on that message. There were people that needed help here and people in Wisconsin and Kansas they needed to check on. Dean needed to stay here at least until the living had all been accounted for and the dead had been dealt with. At the same time, whatever Beth and Cas were going to do, needed to be done. Raphael wouldn’t stop coming at them until he was dead or they were. 

Sam felt like colluding with her on this one. He’d take the blame for it if anyone gave her a hard time about it when she got back, because technically she did let them know what she was doing . . . Dean and Gabriel could get pissed at him about it if they wanted, but Sam was putting the people in this camp that needed Dean to stay here above him not wanting to have Dean get pissed off with him for doing the right thing.


	50. Age of Enlightenment

Crowley squinted and said, “And why do you want to help all of a sudden? What’s in it for you?” I looked down at my shoes as my feet swung back and forth. I didn’t know what this place was, some kind of an abandoned building. It was big, a lot bigger than a warehouse would be. Something told me it’d been an abattoir. All I knew was that I was sitting on a big sturdy table made from old, weathered wood. It looked medieval. So did this room with all the candles and the cold draft blowing through. Guess we were going through something of a second Dark Ages at the moment. Time to try and push us into the Age of Enlightenment. 

“In case you haven’t noticed, the parts of Hell that demons tell one another about over campfires in lieu of ghost stories . . . they were unleashed on Heaven, and they’ve been let loose on Earth. I’d say they scorched their way across Hell on their way out too. We need to work together. I have the knowledge you seek. You two have the supernatural capabilities to tap into the power from those souls in a way I can’t, and the two of you can put an end to Raphael and his army,” I responded before I looked over at him and saw that he’d actually been paying attention to me. I’d been expecting an eye roll or some kind of suspicion . . . maybe for him to make an ill-advised move against me even if Cas was standing right there and watching his every move. Crowley and I didn’t part on very good terms even if we’d had quite a few good chess games before that. 

Crowley came to stand next to where I was sitting and said, “And you’re saying that neither Castiel nor myself can contain all that power indefinitely . . . that if one of us takes it all, we’ll explode, and the leviathan will be released . . . that maybe even splitting the souls in half would be too much power for us to contain, and we might die?” I nodded, so he asked, “How do I know there won’t be some kind of a double-cross on this?” 

Cas took the answer to that one. “I have learned not to doubt what Beth says about the future. The last thing I want is to take all of the souls. If that happened, I would fall apart and release the Leviathan. Angel, demon, and human populations are already endangered. None of us could survive a threat, like that. It is better if we take what we need to defeat Raphael and then return the souls before damage can be sustained by either of us.“ 

I further added, “But of course, you can do what you want with your half of the souls . . . keep them, put them back using another spell I know, put some of them back, or - “ 

Crowley cut me off by saying, “I get the jist.” I knew there was going to be some kind of a double-cross from Cas. I just didn’t know what it was. I knew I had one in the works, and if Cas and I both did, then the King of Hell surely did too. 

Crowley flicked his eyes to Cas and then me before he said, “And what’s in it for me? Why would I enter into something with such high risks when the rewards might be nothing or less than nothing by the end of it?” That was a good question. You had 3 people here that didn’t know what the other two were going to do, and it made for a very risky venture. I was trying to trust Cas . . . I was coming around a lot faster than I thought I would after his antics in Heaven. He’d been explaining to me why he and Dean did what they did. It lined up with what Dean had said except Cas said the vines they’d destroyed to release the memories weren’t the problem. The cracks in the halls of my soul were and the vines would disappear eventually as I dealt with each memory. 

Maybe I felt heavier, sadder, and a little darker than I did yesterday, because I’d re-experienced those torture sessions, but they were a part of me. Maybe I was supposed to be a little darker and had held it off for as long as I could, but it was time to face up to it now. And maybe I was getting over myself a little bit faster after seeing the people who’d died back at Bobby’s. 

We’d lost Missouri, Dr. Thomas, Olga, Cameron, Rob, and some of the teenagers, like Andrea . . . and those were just the ones in the basement. I had no idea how many had been lost outside. Maybe all of them were dead. My personal problems were inconsequential. If this was going to work, I had to trust at least one of the two that I was in a room with now, and out of the two of them that was always going to be Cas, but I needed Crowley in on this too. 

Anyway, that’s what I was thinking when Cas narrowed his eyes at Crowley and said, “What is it that you want, Crowley?” 

I tried to hide my smile when Crowley pulled out his contract and surprised him by taking it from him and grabbing a magnifying glass, so I could read the fine print. I was reading that bad boy end to end and adding addendums to it. “You can’t – “ 

I glanced up at Crowley as I grabbed a pen and started marking out the parts I didn’t like. “I can’t what? Make sure this is mutually beneficial for all? Nobody here . . . specifically me, is handing over their soul to you, so I marked it out. I’m willing to let you have some of my blood for your dirty little addiction . . . still can’t believe you couldn’t resist putting it in here under section 31 article Z-2.” 

I went back to reading through it. It took me hours. At some point they’d joined me in sitting on the table . . . Cas looked comfortable in the clothes he’d borrowed from Dean, Crowley had lost his suit jacket . . . and we were all debating what should and should not be added. “What the bloody hell does that mean,” Crowley asked pointing at something I’d just added. 

“The two supernatural entities, hereby known as Castiel, angel of the Lord, and Crowley, a.k.a Fergus MacLeod, do agree that upon receipt of souls and escalation of power to God-like levels, shall restrict their targets for annihilation to Raphael, any and all daevas, demonized-angels a.k.a demons with yellow eyes, and full-blooded demons born of two demons,” I re-read. Seemed pretty clear to me, but I still clarified it for him. “No killing anything but the things on that list. No killing humans, no killing Michael or Gabriel or any other angels, no killing any other demons, no killing each other, no killing monsters or Eve.” 

Crowley squinted and said, “What if we put the souls back? Then we still couldn’t kill anything, and what about you? You get to run around killing everything.” Hmm. Well, I wasn’t changing that I could kill whatever I wanted. 

“How about if she writes that in the event that we give up our right to the souls or if we deliver the souls back to Purgatory, we can kill things other than what she has listed,” Cas offered. That worked for me. I looked at Crowley, and he nodded in agreement, so I added an addendum to what I’d written. That’s kind of what we’d been doing the whole time. 

When all three of us were happy enough with the contract, I said, “Okay quick question. If you become as powerful as a God . . . maybe not The God, but almost that powerful . . . who’s to say you’ll keep your word? That kind of power can corrupt.” 

It was directed at Crowley, so he answered, “I respect the sanctity of contracts. As long as the two of you uphold your end of the bargain, I see no reason to break it.” Crowley and I looked at Cas, and he nodded in agreement, so I handed Crowley my pen, and he said, “On something this big . . . it’ll take a little more than a signature on a piece of paper.” 

I immediately had a flashback to something I remembered hearing a long time ago and said, “You’re not going to sign it on my soul, right? That’s what the Kushiel, Puriel, Rogziel, Lahatiel, and Makatiel did. They branded it into my soul . . . what does that mean exactly?”

Crowley shared a look with Cas and said, “She doesn’t know what that means?” _Clearly not, or I wouldn’t have asked._ Cas glanced at me and looked down while he shook his head, so Crowley answered for him. “Well, it’s lucky you have Squirrel helping you rebuild your soul. You owe him.” 

I looked at Cas for some kind of an explanation, and he said, “If you die before your soul is rebuilt, your soul will not survive because of that contract . . . It’s the only thing that could nullify the contract. I thought that might be why Michael wanted you to be killed when we were in Heaven, but he didn’t know about it. Raphael on the other hand . . . if he was having second thoughts . . . that could explain why there were rumors that his angels wanted to kill you too, but to do what he has done, he would’ve needed an alter already prepared, so I doubt his reservations lasted for long if at all. Maybe there were just rumors.” 

So, if I’d died before that contract was up, I could’ve prevented all of this? “And you didn’t think about nullifying the contract?” I asked incredulously. Crowley found that question particularly relevant to the task at hand. 

Cas quickly shook his head. “No, it didn’t cross my mind once. I would never do that. I thought that we would deal with the consequences of the contract after it had been fulfilled, and we are.” 

Ever since Cas had found out about Kushiel he’d been acting different in one way or another. He must’ve figured out why that’d happened and what it meant for me. It’s why he’d gotten so angry with Dean for threatening to take a part of my soul. If Dean’s threat could be done, it would’ve taken me another step further from becoming whole. Taking my memories would’ve seemed like a safer option . . . it’s also why he let me go back to Dean in addition to protecting me from Crowley and wanting to pretend like he was the bad guy. My soul must not have been rebuilding while I was away from Dean. It’s also why Cas felt overwhelmed when he got a part of my soul. It’d set me back further despite that being what he’d been trying to prevent by taking me in the first place.

Not that I wasn’t grateful, but how could he put me ahead of all of his brothers and sisters in Heaven or the people that were dead now because of this contract? I hadn’t been letting them know what I was thinking, so I had to say something. “So if Rachel had killed me, she would’ve died too . . . oh the irony.” 

Crowley smiled. He enjoyed irony. “So, it’s true. They took half of you and made a psychic vampire to put in as a cat amongst the pigeons?” I nodded, and Crowley said to Cas, “Do you know what that means?” Cas didn’t, but I think I did. It explained why her soul got twisted. No extra torture or anything like that required, just too much power for half a soul to contain.

“I think you and I should have had a chat about that a long time ago. Maybe over one of our games of chess,” I replied looking at Crowley, because I wasn’t ready for anyone to know that yet, and it sucked that Crowley knew before anyone else. 

Crowley looked over at Cas, like he was gossiping and said, “The two of you have more in common than you thought.” 

_Bastard._ I’d let that little thought slip through, so Crowley could hear it without letting Cas hear it, and Crowley raised his eyebrows at me. “I thought we were bonding. Sharing a moment among friends.” _Well, I wouldn’t call us friends. We’re more like chess partners._ I didn’t let him hear that. I needed to keep things copacetic between us.

Cas was watching us and wanted to know what Crowley was talking about, so to get the topic back on course, I said, “Okay, so as soon as we sign the contract, I’ll fill you both in on what we need for the spell, and I’ll come along as a kind of enforcer of the rules, right?” 

We all agreed except on the part about how we were going to sign the contract. Crowley wanted a kiss. Cas and I weren’t too keen on that idea. “How about a hug?” I asked. Crowley wasn’t too keen on that idea, so, I suggested, “How about I give Crowley some blood, and I’ll give Cas a hug. I don’t know what you two need to do.” Crowley was okay with the blood, and Cas was okay with the hug, but they couldn’t come up with something for them to do and then Crowley changed his mind on a hug, because he said it wasn’t meaningful enough for a contract like this, and he didn’t think that was fair for me. Now he was looking out for me with regard to Cas? He went back to the kissing idea. Our negotiations were breaking down. 

“Have you had your shots, a steady stream of antibiotics to clear up any diseases, a clean bill of health from your GP?” Crowley looked offended that I’d said that, so I smiled and said, “No cold sores, no mono, nothing like that? I want cultures and lab results in front of me before I would agree –“ _Damnit._ He’d disappeared. 

I looked at Cas and shrugged. “I’m sorry if I messed up your plan. If I never drink out of glasses in restaurants, then I’m not kissing the King of Hell. I’ve never had a cold sore or mono or whatever else he probably has, and I don’t plan on getting them now.” 

We were quiet for a couple of minutes before Cas asked, “What did he mean when he said we are more alike than we thought?” 

“There were some things I didn’t understand or that were maybe edited out of the texts I read about what went into making a psychic vampire to keep other angels from making them. It’s not just that the soul is taken and twisted. It starts off as twisted because of the parts of a person that are taken,” I answered while I picked at the hem of my jeans. 

“You think that I will think less of you?” 

“It’s in your nature. You wouldn’t be able to help it.” 

Cas tilted his head to the side while he watched me and thought about it. “You are giving me clues. You want me to know, and yet you do not.” 

I guess I did in some ways, but definitely not in others. “Just tell him you’re a nephilim . . . well, you were until they took your grace, and half your soul. Now you’re all human. If he thinks less of you, than you’ll always have me,” Crowley said as he returned with a stack of papers in his hand. 

_Are you fucking kidding me?_ Not only did he tell Cas, but he also came back with every lab report under the sun to show he had a clean bill of health. 

“How the hell did you come back with these so fast?” I looked through them and tried to ignore Cas. 

“Hell has more scientists than you would think. I am the King. I don’t have to wait for the lab results.” _Why would Hell need labs? He would’ve had to wait for some of these. The cultures couldn’t have grown that fast._ “I got them done in Hell. You would think after spending 3 months there that you would understand that time is faster in Hell,” Crowley responded to my thoughts. 

“How do I know you didn’t have them fudge the results? You’re a demon.” 

“They’re scientists first. Do scientists fudge the results?” _No . . . or they’re not supposed to . . . some do. Maybe that’s why they ended up in Hell._

Crowley looked over at Cas and said, “I can see why you like it when you can hear her thoughts. She’s much more amusing than when she talks.”

Cas got up and pulled me with him to stand in a corner across the room, so Crowley couldn’t hear as he asked, “Is that true?” 

I looked at Crowley before I looked at Cas and said, “I don’t know. I think what I say is pretty funny sometimes.” He didn’t look like he thought that was funny, so I looked down. 

_I found out today. Gabriel is my Dad . . . That's why God made him take me when I got out of Heaven and why he came back after I made him leave my grave . . . like the illegitimate daughter he never had? Try legitimate daughter he did have . . . I play with my words enough that I know that’s what that means. I don’t know where that leaves my zombie Dad, but it would appear that I was intentional, and it wasn’t because of fertility problems, or Rachel would’ve never had brothers . . . I have no idea why I exist. Somehow Raphael knew I did and took me the day I was born, cut out the grace and left it with Rachel. I think the grace is what twists them into a monster because half a soul is too unstable to hold something like that . . . I’m what’s left over after that . . . the human half . . . It feels like one big massive conspiracy even if Gabriel said it wasn't, or at least not one he was a part of making._

“I have some of your soul. Perhaps that is why Crowley said we were more alike than we thought?” Sometimes I think he played dumb the way I did when he didn’t want to admit something. He couldn’t have missed the point by that much. 

“Or, I’m part angel without the grace.” _Still think I was worth not destroying that contract over?_

Cas made me look at him by putting his hand on my shoulder while he said, “You are correct. I haven’t missed the point, but you have. I don’t care that Gabriel is your Father . . . I think it might explain how your soul was strong enough to withstand dissection if it happened when you still had grace and why your eyes change color when you are tapping into your soul. Shaolin Monks’ eyes do not change color that way when they do it.” 

_Says the guy who killed a nephilim in the future I saw because Metatron told him to do it._

Cas shook his head and said, “I have not done that yet, and I’d never do that to you. If the problem is that you do not know what you are . . . you do not have grace, and you have a soul, so you are not an angel. You have been human for as long as I have known you.” 

_Yeah, but you just said it's why my eyes change color, and what about all the things that make me strange, like being shut off from how I feel about things?_

"I believe that is something you had to do to survive in -" 

Crowley interrupted whatever Cas was going to say by popping up next to us and saying, “Are we going to do this, or what?” 

Ugh, kissing the King of Hell was last on my list of wants at that particular point in time. _You’re sure you need this for your plan?_ Cas nodded, so I said, “Yeah, all right. I just need to check a bit more of the paperwork,” before I went back and rifled through the papers looking for the tests I thought seemed most relevant. Hep B, Hep C, mono, any kind of herpes complex virus actually . . . Crowley told me to stop stalling before I could go back through and see if I’d missed anything in the bacterial columns. 

“If you take a picture, I will kill you. It’s one of the perks of me being able to kill anything I want.” I made sure that my angel blade was clearly visible. It was fast and pretty painless. Crowley looked at Cas when it was over, and Cas told him his deal would be not smiting him. Crowley looked like he was going to argue that until Cas’s wings stood out in the shadows across the wall behind him, and Crowley decided a handshake would suffice. 

__Why the hell didn’t that work for me_ _

“No grace. No smiting. No threat,” Crowley answered. 

That left Cas and me, so I extended a hand, and Crowley nixed that the same way he did the hug. “How about I have God smite you Crowley? Is that enough of a – “ I was cut off as Cas wrapped his arm around me and landed his lips over mine. 

_What the hell are you doing, Cas?_

“What the hell is going on here?” 

I pushed Cas away and looked at Dean. “See, we were –“ I was cut off again as Cas put his hand and on my shoulder, and then he and Crowley got me out of there before I could explain. Fuck. This day could not get any worse, or maybe it could, because it definitely did. 


	51. Calm Down

Gabriel quickly looked at Dean and said, “That wasn’t what it looked like.” 

Dean slowly turned his dark gaze towards Gabriel. “So we didn’t walk in on the middle of Cas kissing Beth, and Beth not putting up a fight about it?” 

Gabriel cocked one of his eyebrows and said, “That’s what it looked like. I said it wasn’t what it looked like,” as he went over to where Cas and Beth had been standing with Crowley and had a look around before he said, “I bet they were making a deal.” 

_That’s even worse, isn’t it? What the hell did they talk Beth into now?_ “Does she even know what Cas’s plan is?” Dean said getting pissed off again, cuz he knew for a fact that a deal making kiss didn’t look like what he just saw. 

“If I had to guess, I’d say she’s walked into this one blind,” Gabriel answered while looking around the table. 

_So, Cas gets her blind trust again, and I have to earn it back?_ “Did I do this? Did I push her towards him,” Dean finally asked. 

Gabriel knelt to have a look through some papers that were on the floor while he answered, “She’s trying to put an end to my brother before anymore people get hurt.” 

Dean knew that, but he was having a real hard time being understanding about all of this right now. First, Sam decided not to tell him that she’d been gone for over half a day. Now, he walks in on the middle of something he never wanted to see. 

“Calm down. It’s like I thought. They were making a deal. I’m guessing she spent hours going over the tiniest details of the contract and then got hung up on how they were going to sign it,” Gabriel said while he stood with the papers in his hand and slapped them against Dean’s chest. Dean scrambled to hold onto them, so they didn’t fall and tried to get a look at him, so he could figure out what Gabriel was talking about. _What the hell are these?_ “Lab results for one Crowley, King of Hell. She probably wanted a full workup before she agreed to kiss him for the deal,” Gabriel answered behind him.

 _Still doesn’t explain the Cas thing._ “He probably caught her by surprise. In case you hadn’t noticed, he’s been trying to piss you off lately,” Gabriel said looking bored before he added, “If she’s working off of what I showed her about the future, we should head for San Francisco. There’s a monster there that won’t like them coming around. Beth will probably keep them from killing her, but they’ll still need her blood for the spell.” 

_How the hell is Gabriel so calm?_ Beth had no idea what she was walking into. Cas was changing things up . . . some. He was still being a dick. Dean thought Cas was being a bigger dick this time around than he was in the TV show Beth talked about. 

“He has a plan he thinks will work. Whether or not it will . . . I don’t know. I think he’s a little misguided, but weren’t you the main proponent of him making his own decisions, or did you only want him to make the ones you thought were acceptable?” 

_Could start by not making a decision to kiss his best friend’s . . . whatever Beth and me are._

Dean kept kept stalling for time by going through Crowley’s medical records, and Gabriel said, “You’re getting caught up on the wrong things, Dean. What did Beth tell you this morning in that playground?” 

_This morning? Feels like it was days ago._ He’d been finding bodies and burning them all day and trying to save the ones that could be saved, and now she was off kissing other men, and – 

“Do you really think she ran away from you, so she could make out with Cas in front of Crowley? Come on . . . I know it’s hard, but I know you know how to be reasonable. Are we going to San Francisco or what?” 

_Or what._ Dean didn’t feel like chasing after her this time. 

“Is this going to turn into another one of those things where you call her easy and accuse her of –“ Gabriel stopped when Dean finally turned around to look at him.

“Were you there for that?” 

Gabriel traced his fingers across the back of a chair and looked at the dust before he blew it away and looked at Dean to say, “You were thinking it just now . . . It’s why you’re stalling, so you don’t lose your temper the next time you see her . . . I’m not omnipresent.” 

_Good, because -_

“Can we not? I really don’t want to talk about it,” Gabriel said before he snapped his fingers, and they were standing outside of a huge townhouse in San Francisco. Dean grinned and was about to say something inappropriate to annoy Gabriel, but Gabriel stopped him before he could start. “Let’s see how you like it when your daughter gets old enough to start dating and whoever it is wants to let you know what they get up to in their alone time.” 

That was so not happening. His daughter wasn’t going anywhere near men . . . or women . . . anybody. He’d kill anyone that . . . Dean looked at Gabriel and nodded. He got it. That was off the table. “Still don’t understand why –“ Dean started to say as they got through the front gate.

“She is my daughter. Thought we cleared that up today. Beth sure got it.” 

Dean stopped. “So you’re really her . . . well, then who the hell was the zombie guy who tried to give me a Dad lecture?“ 

Gabriel put his hand on the door and unlocked it, while he answered, “He’s the guy she should’ve grown up with.” 

_What the hell does that mean? How could Gabriel just let Raphael take her?_

“I didn’t know he had her . . . Look, I didn’t want anything to do with her mother. I washed my hands of her and anything to do with her until I got a call from my Father,” Gabriel answered as he led them upstairs. Yeah, her Zombie Dad wasn’t a fan of her Mom either. 

“Wait –“ Gabriel turned around and told Dean to be quiet. 

_Is that why you left Beth in a grave?_

“No, I didn’t even know she was my daughter until I opened the lid and saw what’d been done to her . . . there’s only one reason a soul would have the parts missing that hers did.” 

_Then how did Beth not know? She read about psychic vampires up there._

“Short answer? It’s the worst thing an angel can do . . . recipe books on how it’s done are the last thing that would’ve been printed up there . . . mostly just ways to get rid of them.” 

_You’re sure that’s not why you left Beth –_

“I needed to get Kali away from her, and then I needed enough time to figure out how to give Beth the life she should’ve had. I had to see what that would’ve been, and I needed to figure out how to come back the way she needed me to be, as a father, and not as a trickster. It was a hard transition to make. I was a bachelor for thousands of years and had to give it up in 2 days.” 

“Is that why –“ Dean stopped when Gabriel turned to shoosh him. _Is that why you didn’t want anything to do with her Mom? Love and leave ‘em or –_ He stopped again when Gabriel gave him a look. 

“No, well yes, I guess there could be more of mine out there somewhere. I’ve been around the block more than a few times, but . . . I don’t want to talk about it. I didn’t have much choice in the matter. Her Mom was a horrible human being . . . as far as I’m concerned, Rachel was hers, and Beth is mine.” 

_That’s kind of the way it worked out . . . why didn’t you just kill her Mom? I’ve seen you do it for a lot less, and why can’t I talk when you are?_

“Because you’ve got a big mouth.”

Dean stopped with the questions when they got to the top of the stairs, because it looked like there’d been a struggle, and his attention went on that. There were papers and books and boxes thrown around the place. When they got to the study, they found a well-groomed lady sitting there tied to a chair. That’s the only thing that made her stand out as a monster . . . well, that and she looked high class in a city that had fallen like all the rest. 

Dean glanced around her study while Gabriel untied her and asked her a few questions. _Huh . . . this must be where I would’ve gotten the sword to slay some dragons._

Dean had to take a slow breath as he thought about when Beth first told him that. It hurt to remember it. They’d been at Bobby’s, and Sam had upset her, so Dean had gone out to fix it, and she’d told him about the questions being the key to unlocking her memories of the future. It was the first time she’d put her head on his shoulder. She hadn’t done that in a long time. It’d been over a year. 

“What do we do with her?” Dean asked when Gabriel was done with his questioning. 

“She’s harmless now. She hasn’t killed anyone in awhile. We’ll leave her. We need to go to Rhode Island,” Gabriel answered. 

“Tell that girl, she needs to watch the company she keeps,” the woman called. 

Gabriel sighed before he muttered, “I’ve tried. She never listens. She’ll probably be back to ask if you want to live in one of their camps if she can get Dean to agree to it.” 

Gabriel snapped his fingers again before Dean could respond to that, and they were standing outside of a mansion in Rhode Island. “It doesn’t bother you?” Dean looked at Gabriel, so Gabriel clarified, “That she’s my daughter? Half-angel.” 

Dean hadn’t thought about it. “Nephilim?” Gabriel nodded. “It’s why they took her, and why they tore her apart? Did they give Rachel your half?” 

Gabriel shook his head while they walked up the front steps and said, “My half? If you mean Rachel got my grace, than yeah, it’s why she had superhuman abilities when her part of the soul couldn’t contain it anymore.” 

Dean remembered when Sam questioned him on if Rachel and Beth were both monsters, and how Beth had questioned that about herself too, and it never bothered him. He’d take her as she was . . . if there was even anything still there between them. “Is that why –“ 

Gabriel cut him off. “No. She always would’ve been unique after she went through what she did up there.” Unique. That was one way to put it. 

“Would she and I –“ 

“Do you really want to know?” Dean glanced at Gabriel and nodded. Right now it was what he needed to hear. “It could’ve played out so many different ways. In some timelines, you would’ve met Beth and in others you wouldn’t . . . and there are some where you would’ve been a hunter, and she would’ve been a scientist, and you would’ve given it up to be with her, or she would’ve given it up to be with you, but anytime the two of you met, you always ended up together, because you’re soul mates.” 

_Soul mates?_ Dean laughed until he saw the look Gabriel gave him and then he cleared his throat and said, “That’s why you were able to show her a TV show without her in it . . . how many of me are there?” 

Gabriel opened the door to the mansion and said, “How many decisions have you made in your life? There’s a different timeline for each of them.” 

So that meant that somewhere out there, all the things she’d seen on that show were happening or had happened or would happen just the way she saw them . . . that’s why some things she saw still happened, the big things . . . they were like common threads of Fate that tied everything together? “Am I –“ 

“From what I can tell, you’re exactly the same in all of them.”

 _Am I a hunter in all of them?_

“Yeah . . . you wouldn’t have been born if the angels hadn’t intervened for a specific reason, which means at some point you would’ve been pulled into it.” Dean felt like he needed a drink. 

He heard Beth say, “I think I found it,” as he and Gabriel climbed the stairs. When he got to the top and got a good look inside the library, Dean realized Cas was wearing his clothes, which was just . . . awesome. He’d planned on letting him borrow them, but now he wished Cas was in the bunny costume again. A glance from Gabriel made Dean try to tone it down. 

“Let me see,” Crowley said grabbing for whatever was in her hands. Beth kept him from snatching it and tore the paper into thirds before she gave a third of it to Cas and a third of it to Crowley. Cas didn’t look any happier about that than Crowley did. 

“You wanted me to be the mediator, so I’m mediating to make sure it’s fair for both parties,” Beth said looking at both of them, like a referee. “Go get the things on your list, and I have the incantation part here. We’ll meet when you’re both done.” She seemed to be enjoying herself . . . it was almost like she thought she was on a scavenger hunt. 

As soon as Crowley left, Dean decided to step out of the hall and into the room. “What’d we miss?” Then he looked at Cas and added, “So help me God, Cas if you take off with her again –“ 

Cas’s eyes narrowed at Dean. “You’ll what?” 

Good question. Dean wasn’t used to having Cas throw attitude his way the way he had been lately. “How about you fill me in on what this is, and we’ll talk about it?” 

Gabriel came up beside Dean and said, “That’s better.” 

Dean looked at Beth and asked her because it didn’t look like Cas was going to give him any answers. “Do you know what he’s planning?” She shook her head. “But you trust him to do the right thing?” 

She looked at Cas and nodded before she said, “Yeah, but I don’t know how close of a game of chicken he’s planning on playing with Fate.” 

_What the hell does that mean?_ Dean didn’t get to ask, because Crowley came back, and Cas told him to go to the rendezvous point before he wrapped his arm around Beth’s waist with a pointed look at Dean and they all three disappeared again. 

_What the fuck just happened?_

Gabriel laughed, so Dean looked at him, and Gabriel shrugged. “What? It’s funny. He’s got you tied up in knots, and all he had to do was play up to your insecurities. Let me guess. You called him out on being too close to Beth . . . maybe while you were trying to mark your territory in her soul?” Dean didn’t answer, but his expression told Gabriel all he needed to know, so Gabriel turned and shook his head saying, “Come on. Beth gave us everything we need to know to find them.” 

_What? How?_

“You’ll see. It’s a very complicated 3-way game of chess they’re playing.”


	52. Double-cross

Beth took the last thing needed for their spell from Castiel. “I don’t think you should come for this part.” 

She shook her head, like she’d heard that many times and was tired of heard it. “Well, I don’t think you should do this alone. It’s why I joined in on the contract too. None of us can break it, or it’s null and void, and we can’t afford for Crowley to break his side of the agreement no matter what you decide. He is like a cockroach that keeps surviving when he shouldn’t. I have the incantation, so I will say the spell.” 

She was playing a game with him as much as he was with her. The truth was she had figured out his plan. He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. It wasn’t very complicated. He’d set the stage for this to happen the way that it should according to Fate. Dean felt betrayed and was very angry with him. Perhaps Castiel had gone about it the wrong way, but he’d needed to do something that would put Dean at odds with him again after the civil war in Heaven, and it seemed like there was only one way to do that, but he should’ve taken the time to figure out another way to make Dean think the worst of him. 

She was meant to be with Dean, and that was where she would return when this was all over. The problem was that kissing her once had awakened something in him. He’d been drawn to her more since she’d given him a part of her soul. Castiel didn’t know how long he was going to have it, but it seemed to be burning just as strong as when he got it, and it wanted to join back up with its original owner. It was interfering with his thought process.

His plan wasn’t supposed to have permanent ramifications for her or Dean, and now there was a part of him that was beginning to question why God had given him part of her soul if it wasn’t for this. He didn’t want to question it, because questions like that led to temptation. In addition to those problems that having a part of her soul caused, now she was further away from completing her soul. Again. Why would God do that? A year ago, before Dean left her, she was close to completing her soul. All she’d had was another 10%, but now it was closer to 15-17%. 

What would happen to her when she finally gave into those memories of Heaven that Castiel was responsible for making her remember after removing her memories of Dean? She could not allow them to kill her, or she would cease to exist because of that contract on her soul. If destroying them one-by-one the way he and Dean had, caused her the physical difficulties she said they did, what would happen when she received them all at once? It’s what he’d been worried about before he gave her memories back, and it’s why he’d helped Dean release a few, but Gabriel had stopped them before they could do more. Maybe doing 3 or 4 everyday would be better, but that was out of his hands now. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. 

When he was in her soul, he’d refrained from looking at the first of her memories that she was pulled into even though he understood what the angels were saying to her, and it angered him. He’d refrained from looking at the second and was again angered by what had happened, but at the same time, he felt some pride, because Zadkiel had finally done the right thing. Zadkiel made a statement with his death. 

Castiel had tried to resist looking at the third one the way he had the others, but when he heard her screaming and what she was saying, he’d looked, because he’d never heard her sound like that, and it made him want to help her. Prior to that he’d reminded Dean that these things had happened in the past, but he’d forgotten it himself that time. He’d seen briefly what they’d done to her before he turned to block Dean’s view. He didn’t know the angel, but she called him Puriel in her thoughts. He was going to kill Kushiel and Puriel and - 

Beth interrupted his thoughts by saying, “Any idea which way you’re going to go?” He had an idea, but he didn’t think she would like it, and he wasn’t going to commit to it until it was time, so he shook his head. She appraised him and gave him a sly smile. _Does she know what I’m thinking?_ Maybe him having part of her soul meant she could know things like that now. It’s what had allowed him to go into her soul after Dean . . . No, she often claimed to know him. Maybe he had given himself away again without meaning to do it. 

Castiel wondered if he should change his plans now and go with the other option. She smiled a little wider. _Is she trying to trick the answer out of me?_ He didn’t know. It was time to go, and he would have to make his decision at the last second. 

When they met with Crowley, they put the ingredients together on a table, and Beth combined them. When it was done, she told them how to put it on the wall, so they followed her instructions. Each of them painted half to continue with the pretense that they were not trying to out maneuver the other. This was already different than the future Beth saw. 

If Castiel betrayed Crowley at the last second, it would be another step along the path of his fate. Castiel needed to follow that path or as close to it as possible, so he could change it at the last second without giving Fate warning as to his intentions. He planned on taking the souls back to Purgatory as soon as Raphael was dead. If Fate didn’t see that coming, then it wouldn’t have time to stop him.

The best way to betray Crowley was to kill him even though Castiel knew it was not Crowley’s time yet. This was about changing fate, so in that respect, he would have done at least one service for the universe even if the rest of his plan failed.

He got his angel blade ready as he stood side by side with Crowley behind Beth. She read out the incantation from the piece of paper, and the sigil they’d painted started to glow, but something must be wrong. Beth quickly turned and looked behind them, like she’d heard something, and then she pulled her angel blade. Castiel looked behind him, thinking that Raphael was interfering and saw much too late that she’d tricked him. She’d done the same thing when they’d played checkers, and he’d fallen for it again. In his defense, she’d been much more convincing this time. 

By the time he looked back around, all he had time to do was grab her and fall with her to the ground, so the full-force of the power coming from Purgatory didn’t obliterate her. That meant all the souls all went straight into Crowley. She looked at Crowley over Castiel’s shoulder and exhaled a nervous breath before she said, “Cas, you have to say you relinquish your right to your half of the souls.” 

That must mean that Crowley was watching and waiting for any opportunity to get out of their contract now that the spell had been completed. Castiel should have ended him when he had the chance. “The contract is to be upheld. I relinquish my right to my half of the souls, and at such time that Crowley decides he does not want said souls, I will help him return them to Purgatory.” 

As soon he felt Crowley leave, Castiel asked, “What have you done?” 

Beth took a deep breath and replied, “I made your decision for you.” 

“The only way for it to have worked was if I was the one to take them.” 

She shook her head. “No, either way would work. He’s going to kill Raphael now . . . I’d say he’ll wipe out the daevas too, because they’ll take up too much of his time to control, and nobody that wasn’t at least an archangel in strength could really control them. He might try to conscript the demon-angels and the full-blooded demons, but we can deal with them.” 

“How are we supposed to make Crowley give back those souls before the Leviathans break free?” 

“He may come willingly when he sees the effect that having all those souls has on him. If he doesn’t, he’ll go into a full meltdown. He’s not an angel, so I’m hoping it’ll kill him . . . and the Leviathan . . . maybe they are what the world needs right now. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are billions of Croats out there. Maybe the Leviathans are the only thing that can help us clear them out in the numbers we need to really have a chance of starting over again . . . Once they’ve done that, we can put them back in Purgatory . . . I know how to get rid of them, or at least, I know how to get rid of the leader, and then they’ll scatter and won’t be as big of a threat. We can deal with them the same way we do all the other monsters . . . All we need to do is decapitate them and bury their heads in cement to put them down. They won’t be dead, but they won’t be a problem.” He wasn’t really listening. He was distracted by his close proximity to her. 

He looked at her lips. “Anyway, I wasn’t going to let you sacrifice yourself for this any more than you were willing to kill me to nullify that contract . . . sorry I threw out a year’s worth of hard planning in a couple of seconds. You can apologize to Dean now.” 

_For what?_ “Why should I apologize to Dean? He has not been very good to you,” he said without taking his eyes off her lips as he re-positioned his body on top hers and leaned closer to kiss her again.

“Cas? What are you doing?!” 

“That is a very good question,” Gabriel said while he came over to pick Castiel up. Dean was standing in the background staring daggers at him. Gabriel pulled Castiel over to a different part of the room, so he could say, “I take it you’ve been . . . more confused in your feelings for Beth since you got part of her soul?” 

Castiel looked away, and Beth was talking to a Dean that wasn’t really interested in what she had to say about Crowley getting the souls, because Dean was busy watching him. Castiel looked back at Gabriel and said, “If that is what is causing it, then God gave me part of her soul. There has to be a reason -” 

Gabriel interrupted him. “I’m betting that He probably gave it to you because he expected you to be above this kind of nonsense, but since you aren’t, I need to have a talk with all three of you, so we can figure this out . . . and I was just getting Dean calmed down too. Thanks a lot Castiel.”

Castiel asked Gabriel what he saw when he got there, so Gabriel sighed and answered, “An angel trying his hardest to seduce someone else’s soulmate. You’re lucky she’s slow on the uptake when it comes to things like that, or you would’ve been in big trouble. Humans find it difficult to resist us . . . no more touching for now.” 

_What would happen if I did? I want to again._

“Well, you can’t. She’s not meant for you.” 

_Why not? I wouldn’t hurt her or do the things that Dean has said or done or threatened to do to her._ She was fated to be with Dean, but Fate could be changed, and she chose for Castiel to be in her life. She followed him around for years in Heaven. She’d studied him. She knew him. They were alike. 

Gabriel sighed and shook his head. “You’re putting up more of a fight about it than I would have expected.” 

“Can I give the part of her soul I have back?” 

Gabriel sighed and said, “I doubt it . . . I don’t even know how it happened.” 

_I should leave?_

“Probably, but it may cause more harm than good. We’ll have to see. We have to talk to them, explain things, and try to smooth them over, so we can all work together first. Let me do the talking.”


End file.
